Telling tales on the Instruments.

Only a half day on the polo today as it's our works Christmas Night out this afternoon. (Yes, I know it's March tomorrow, that says a lot about the organisational skills of the people I work with.) Anyhow, after much juggling of the instrument panel I have managed to remove it and replace the bulbs that light up the dash. The Haynes manual says after removing the screws swivel the instrument panel down to release the multiplug connector and the speedometer cable. For swivel, understand that it means wrestle, taking all the skin off your knuckles on the surrounding sharp edges.

Anyhow, whilst I was in there a squirt of switch cleaner restored full functionality to the headlamp switch, so you no longer have to jiggle it to get dipped beam.

With that done attention turned to the rear fog lamp tell tale light issue. Had the Polo been a couple of years older it would have been exempt from the requirement for a fog lamp at all, but as it needs one it also needs a tell tale lamp on the dash to show that it is on. In almost thirty five years of motoring I can count on one hand the number of times I've had to use the rear fog lamps (six) We just don't get thick smogs like we used to, and I've always worked on the basis that if I can see the headlights of the car behind then he ought to be able to see me, and using the rear fog then just dazzles and prevents him seeing essential lights like signals and brakes coming on. Anyway, I digress, the car has to have one to satisfy the MoT man. 

So far as I can see there is no dashboard light for the fog lamp and never has been. The switch itself may have had illumination, but if it did I can't see how to get it apart to replace a bulb. The headlamp bulb has backlit illumination and the source is obvious, but nothing for the fog lamp. So an old school solution was to fit an in period aftermarket warning lamp in a spare switch blank above the switch - this satisfies MOT requirements and doesn't look out of place. At just £1.80 it's a cheap workaround too.

Tomorrow I will take a look at the radio, install a new aerial and maybe swap in some newer speakers I have on the shelf.

Tell tale absent elsewhere, the solution was an aftermarket lamp in the spare switch blank.