Heres what happened. When I bought the car last year the water temp gauge in the cluster was broken and the previous owner had put an aftermarket water temp gauge in the side pillar. The gauge took accurate reading but the light didn’t work. Today I pulled the pillar off to fix the light in the gauge and as I was pulling it off a spark shot. When the moron who owned the car before me installed in the gauge he left the positive and negative wires for the light sitting hot in the pillar, and they touched when I took the pillar off. He ran the wires for the light off the back of the broken gauge in the cluster. Now none of my gauges in the cluster take readings, but the cluster still lights up. I replaced all of the fuses related to the gauge cluster but they are still not working. Im getting the feeling that tt might have shorted out the entire gauge cluster. I’m hoping I don’t have to replace the entire cluster so if anyone has any ideas or other things to check please let me know.

 

I suppose I'd dig into the body electrical troubleshooting manual (link to that download is in the sticky thread at the top of this forum) and see about testing the individual gauges. I'm sure many of them operate on 0-5v signal, which you can test with a AA battery or two and an ohmmeter.

In any case the cluster electronics themselves are nowhere near as expensive to buy used as the cluster surround and hood. And next time disconnect the battery.

Dave