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Note: This is a repost of a "how to" I posted over on Fiero.nl. I'm putting it on this site too since the festiva uses the same type of bulb and socket as the Fiero so it stands to reason that this issue *could* affect Festiva's as well, though I've never had a problem with it personally.
The only lights that worked on the dash of my wife's '85 2M4 were the "door ajar" light and occasionally the "high beam" indicator. If NO lights worked I would have suspected a ground issue, but this seemed strange. I read several posts about the dimmer switch going bad, but it wasn't this either, since the radio and a/c lights came on just fine and dimmed like they were supposed to and all the illumination traces on the plastic pcb at the back of the cluster had power with the light switch on. So I pulled the cluster and started pulling the bulbs one by one and testing them still in their sockets. After a half dozen bulbs that "seemed" dead (by plugging them into a known working cluster on another car) I decided that maybe something was wrong with the sockets. So I pulled one of the bulbs out of its socket and put it into one of the sockets from the working dash, and sure enough it lit up bright and strong. Turns out only one bulb was dead, the rest were just not making contact with their sockets. I pulled each bulb out and bent the thin metal leads out from the glass about an 1/8 of an inch and now all of them work! Just thought I would share in case anyone else has had this problem! Doesn't save a whole lot of money over just buying new bulbs, but in my case it saved me the 30 minute round trip to the store to get them
The only lights that worked on the dash of my wife's '85 2M4 were the "door ajar" light and occasionally the "high beam" indicator. If NO lights worked I would have suspected a ground issue, but this seemed strange. I read several posts about the dimmer switch going bad, but it wasn't this either, since the radio and a/c lights came on just fine and dimmed like they were supposed to and all the illumination traces on the plastic pcb at the back of the cluster had power with the light switch on. So I pulled the cluster and started pulling the bulbs one by one and testing them still in their sockets. After a half dozen bulbs that "seemed" dead (by plugging them into a known working cluster on another car) I decided that maybe something was wrong with the sockets. So I pulled one of the bulbs out of its socket and put it into one of the sockets from the working dash, and sure enough it lit up bright and strong. Turns out only one bulb was dead, the rest were just not making contact with their sockets. I pulled each bulb out and bent the thin metal leads out from the glass about an 1/8 of an inch and now all of them work! Just thought I would share in case anyone else has had this problem! Doesn't save a whole lot of money over just buying new bulbs, but in my case it saved me the 30 minute round trip to the store to get them