restoring instrument panel lights

My 1976 MG has dash turn signals, high beam indicator, red battery light but no lights to tach, speedometer, oil pressure, fuel, temperature. I want to assume that the panel reostat is defective and try to remove and repair it per the article in the Library. I understand that one can tie the wires to the reostat together to provide non adjustable brightness to the instrument panel. Is my assumption correct or should I not have the interior lights I do have with a defective reostat? I also have an interior lamp that goes on when a door is opened although it's behind the console for the radio and is barely seen. Currently the radio is not in the vehicle so I get a bit of light where the radio used to be. Where is the interior light supposed to be placed? One more thing, on the left side of the console is a hole where a rocker switch once existed. What was that switch for? Thank you for any feedback you might have.
Jim

The left side rocker switch should be a heater fan on/off switch. The interior light should be mounted above the speaker grille on the center console.

Bryan:
Thanks for the clarification. Interestingly, my heater blower rocker switch is located on the left side of the main instrument panel. Perhaps a PO changed it from the center console to just next to the heater/defroster turn knob. I wonder if there is another interior switch I could place on the console space? I'll move the interior light.
Jim

Oh, my bad. I misread your original post. The left side rocker switch on the console is for hazzard flasher switch.

Sounds like you are right about the rheostat. If its fried you wont have lights to the gauges, but you will still have light to the highbeam indicator, flashers, etc, everything you described.

Bypass the rheostat and you will have lights to your gauges. The dimmer function is a bit of a joke anyway. As you will see when you get your gauges lit up, they are dim enough to start with.

Noah, how do you bypass the rheostat? Someone disconnected it and ran a wire and spliced it to the red/whites from the solenoid. I'm sure there's a better way.

Matt,
What I did was take the rheostat apart,remove the round part,keep the metal contact tabs and soldier a heavy wire between the 2 tab ends. Put the cover back together,reinstall,and connect the 2 plugs.Worked out great. I did it that way because I perfer to not cut and splice wires if I do not have to.

Cool, Thanks. I got it apart... Solder the inside of the prongs together down the middle or across from each other? Inner prongs below.


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Jim,
the 2 on each side..not the middle ones. If I remember they were the 2 longer ones.

Thanks Jack!