Okay. I'm officially a moron. I'll explain why... I started working on my car's instrument cluster for these reasons:

I had no working tach, no oil pressure guage (the speedo works fine, the volt meter works good, the temp gauge works good). The Fuel works fine at full to 1/2, but below that it sinks right to WAY below empty.

Now, it's WORSE. I tried grounding out the oil pressure guage to see if the needle moves. When I did so, there was a short followed by smoking electrical. ****.

Now I have no tach, no oil, no temp, no fuel. Only thing that works is the speedo - and that's mechanical. All my idiot lights are working fine, as are the turn signals and hazards. Just NO guages.

I assume I need a new cluster now? IDK WTF is going on... and I HATE electrical problems. Any assistance is greatly appreciated. TIA.

~ Timmy

 

Look for burnt filaments on the circuit board, look at each gauge. There are fine white wires wound around a thin bar. If they are not bright white, show any burning or browning, they are toast. Also check your fuses, meter. I can't see all of the gauges going at once, the board or a fuse maybe.

 

Thanks for the info. Can you replace the filaments if they are shot? Where might I find a new circuit board? This thin bar - where is that at? Behind the circuit board?

I think now I've got a bad board/filaments, a bad ignitor, and a bad oil pressure sending unit. Not sure though.

Also, will an '85 instrument cluster work in my '83? They seem different.

 

The filaments and bar are on each gauge, it is a bi-metalic strip that moves the needles. 83's are different than the 84-85 clusters.