[Rick Erwin]

With the assistance of my excellent IA, we got the electroluminescent panel and the rheostat removed.

For posterity’s sake here are the steps.

Extricate the knobs from their posts and remove the nuts securing the switches on the EL panel.

Remove the row of flight instruments just above the EL panel.

With someone inside the plane and someone in the left avionics bay, remove all the switches from the panel as they extend through the EL panel into the metal panel that’s behind the EL panel. There are plastic spring clips on the top and the bottom of each switch that must be depressed to free the switch housing from the two panels. We were able to use a plastic double edge razor blade (the orange ones from Amazon) to wedge between the plastic switch frame and the EL panel to depress the clips to extricate the switches from the EL panel.

Since it would be a living nightmare to lose track of what switches and wires go where ...

Before removing ANY wires from the backs of the switches:
1. Enumerate all the switches with labels, (Klein makes a small book of wire labels, it's available on Amazon.)
2. Zip-tie all wires going to that switch into a bundle to keep them together,
3. Enumerate each bundle with the same number as the switch to which it is attached,
3. Enumerate each wire on the back of each switch with labels,
4. Write down on a sheet of paper which wire label numbers, go in which connection positions, on each switch (Switch #1, Bundle #1. Wire #6 upper-outboard, Wire #3 middle-inboard, etc.)

Once all the switches have been removed, the EL panel will be free from the panel.

To get the EL switch panel out of the airplane, you'll still have to remove the control yoke. If you have electric trim, autopilot disconnect, and trim interrupt switches on your yoke, you'll have to cut the wires running through the yoke shaft. Make sure you enumerate the wires on BOTH sides of the cut, BEFORE you actually cut the wires. You might consider wiring in a "small" barrel cannon plug that will fit inside the yoke shaft so that you will not ever have to deal with that again.

We had to clip a few zip-ties to give enough slack to get the EL panel away from the instrument panel to gain access to the two screws that secure the lighting rheostat to the metal panel.

The rheostat is in a housing that is about 3-4 inches long as this is the rheostat that pushes and pulls to control the under-glareshield floods as well as the panel post lights. The actual rheostat is part number S1904-4. Cessna asks about $900 for the whole unit, and about $350 for just the rheostat. I found the rheostat at Sky Airparts for about $185.

I heard from a friend who said his EL panel had two holes in it to remove the two screws that secure the rheostat, so … some may not have to go through what I’ve described above, unless you still want to remove the EL panels.

Rick