The problem appears to have been fixed. Last Tuesday I took the 'Bird into work for some exercise, and after work I stopped by a friend's place to help him change a starter solenoid on his '93 Ford Ranger. Long story short, after changing the solenoid and hanging out afterwards (his wife made some awesome beef stew--guess I'll work for food :D ), I was headed home after dark.
He lives out in the country, so I spent 40 minutes driving on some very dark country roads with lots of high beam usage. The lights never flickered, and when I got home, a check of the dimmer switch showed that it didn't heat up like before. I think the problem is solved.
Regarding the gentleman whose interior (dash) lights are flickering, I believe they're also protected by the headlight switch circuit breaker. A look at my owner's manual shows two circuit breakers are built into the headlight switch, one for the headlights and I presume one for the interior lights (I think the tail lights are on the same breaker as the interior lights). In my situation, even though the headlight circuit was the one having problems, at one point my headlight switch overheated so badly that even my tail lights and interior lights were affected. If it wasn't so dangerous, it would have been funny to watch the various lights cycling on their independant time scale.
The easiest (though not the least expensive) thing to try is to substitute a known good headlight switch and see if that fixes your problem. In my case, the original headlight switch must have also been bad (in addition to the dimmer switch), since it would get so hot I couldn't touch it (even after only 3 minutes of use). After replacement, it still heated up, just not as bad as before (which made me prematurely declare victory). As Joe (the other Joe ;) ) noted, your switch should get a little warm because of the dimmer control for your dash lights. However, I think Joe would agree, unless you actually touch the dimmer control itself, your switch shouldn't get so hot you can't touch it.
If a new switch doesn't cure it, my suggestion is to do what I did--follow the circuit and find anything else that may be causing excessive resistance--this includes all connectors (plugs), and any grounds (not sure where, but there should be a ground wire connected to a metal section of either the dash or some other metal body part). Any loose or frayed insulation would be fair game, too. I'd suggest getting a wiring diagram.
Good luck--I can sympathize since electrical problems are among the most frustrating car problems to diagnose. Often, the actual repair is easy, it's finding the problem that's hard. That's a big reason why my newest car is a 1981 Mercury Zephyr. Fewer electrical gremlins to fight. A co-worker (different one) at my job has a '96 Jeep Cherokee, and he has an intermittent misfire that several different mechanics can't track down (two different dealerships and an independant mechanic). From my entire childhood and adult experience, I've yet to see a misfire that couldn't be tracked down and fixed in a pre-computer era car. I remember my father doing a lot of work on his cars (it seemed 90% of which involved fiddling with temperamental ignition points), but even though he only had a 3rd grade education and no formal mechanics training, there was never a problem he couldn't fix. Just wish they'd build cars like that today.
Joe
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