Hello. I have a fiat panda 4x4 ie 1988. This is not the one with the cough, this is my second one. I'm just in the begining of fixing it up. I quickly ran into trouble.

None of the lights are working, no headlamps, no interior light, no indicators, no brakelights, no dashboard lights, and the temperature and fuel gages give no reading. The clock works though.

I bought the car last autumn and back then atleast the dashlights and gages worked (probably the rest of it too but I can't specifically remember). And since then I have done nothing with the car whatsoever, hasn't moved an inch.
I checked the fuses and couldn't see any broken one, and it seems unlikely that everyone related to lights should be broken.

Does anyone have any ideas?

PS. I am a guy who have a fairly good grip on many things, but electrics are my achilles heel big time, I just don't understand it, to abstract for me.

Take a jump lead connect it to the negative terminal of the battery then the other end to a good clean connection on the body. Check for items working. If so it’s a bad negative connection sometimes the body connection brakes off.
Then start cleaning up the connection to the hedgehogs. Things may work

Sounds like it could be the ignition switch to me

Alright I'll give that a try. Does it have to be clean metal?

Ignition switch? Even though I can start the car?

All of the things that are not working (except the interior light) are ignition controlled so I would say that is a good place to start. You really need to find the correct wiring diagram for your car and use that to begin testing circuits. It is best to focus on one thing first, such as the headlights, it is likely that whatever is causing them to not work is the same as everything else.

i would go with the ignition switch too. in the switch is has its own "live" for only the lighting. my guess that it, or the connector has died.
you'll have to pull the dash down take the steering wheel off (24mm nut), undo the ignition stalk switch (8mm long reach) and pull the steering wheel cowling off. to check it.

also try wiggling all of your fuses

hope this helps:

I had the same problem.
The negative lead from battery to point on bulkhead then on to gearbox. On mine the crimp connection at bulkhead point had become lose. Cured by fitting a wire between the battery terminal and a clean point on body.
Do the jump lead test previously described.

Thanks for the advice. But then how do I tell if it is the ignition switch? I don't want to drill out the shear head bolts and buy a new switch only to find that it wasn't the problem. Like I said, me and electronics don't play well

Ok I ordered a new ignition switch. I took the connector of the back of the ignition unit. When I put it together again the rotating part kind of went into the wrong position so when I connected the battery the ignition was on, and the indicators turned on (I had flicked the switch when I removed the column switches). This tells me that it's not a question of bad wiring. I'll write here how it turns out when I recieve it, for future reference.

A little update here as well.

I installed the new ignition switch and now all the lights work. Success!

Thank you all for your advice, wouldn't have fugured it out without you!