Mercedes Benz repair: Dash illumination in a Merc 190e, dim illumination, light globes

Question
Hi, I recently bought a 1989 2.6L Mercedes 190e (Right hand drive) and have noticed the dash lights are too dim to view the instruments at night.  I can locate no dash light dimmer control and suspect the globes may be blown, the dim illumination probably sidelight off other instrument and indicator lights, but I can't even reach behind the dash to replace the globes. I've removed the lower dash panel below the steering wheel (would it help to drop the steering wheel down too?)and detached the air vent tube from the centre console, still can't fit my hand in there to detach the speedo cable though and the dash wont pull out far enough to reach the dash lights while the speedo/tacho cable is attached - Surely it shouldn't be this difficult to replace the dash light globes!!! - Am I going in the wrong direction here?  Could it be a bad earth or a high resistance joint somewhere?  All the indicator lights and instruments work OK.  Can you please help?

Regards - Chick  

Answer
Wrong direction...
The instrument cluster must be removed to access bulbs, this takes a special Mercedes tool or home made version of it.

The bulbs are most likely good.

This topic is covered in exhausting detail on the mercedesshop.com technical forum, suggest you join it and search the topic.

http://www.mercedesshop.com/shopforum/forumdisplay.php3?f=1

There are many fixes for it, and each fix covers many pages.
You will need to decide which one is best for you.