[V8] Update on Dash Short/ and find..........

[chris brown]

Well to re-cap. I lost all my dash lights and center console lights.  The driver virtually can see no gauges at night when driving the car. 
I narrowed it down to either the head lamp switch on the steering column (45.00) used. or the dimmer dial located on the left side of the cluster.   ( not available) ?  according to Force 5. 
So tonight as i was driving i started to fiddle with the dimmer dial spinning it around real fast and kind of knocking on it and tapping it at the same time and all of the sudden i got a flash of light on the cluster panel then instantly went off.   (this made me elated)i continued to fiddle with the dial and i got the dash lights back on and they stayed illuminated.  If i touch it just ever so lightly they all go off.
So, its the dimmer dial that is broken. Its spinning around in 360 degrees with no stop or start point.  
 Has anyone ever taken  the cluster out and removed and repaired the dimmer dial?  I Just want to bypass it and leave the dash lights at about 60 percent light.  
also my odometer sometimes stops working and if i tap on the top of the dash it starts working again. I know this is very common.  Is there a easy way to fix this without replacing the cluster.?  I only have 95,000 miles on the car and i dont think i will find a used cluster that shows that low of milage so id like to fix it if i can......

thanks in advance for all the help....
 Chris  1990 V8Q.