yettoblaster
Member
Yep, been there. My dash (pretty much identical to yours) had all sorts of issues also. Nature of the beast with these, apparently.
I pulled the cluster and spent an entire afternoon/evening with it on the workbench, methodically cleaning every contact point on the PC board (a pencil eraser works wonders, honest!) and replacing all the bulbs and their sockets with new ones, which are readily available.
I even hooked up jumper cables from the cars' battery and clamped the other ends to my wooden workbench (don't try this at home, kids) so I could test each circuit with 12V as I went; having a factory service manual for wiring diagrams helped a lot, too.
I replaced the voltage limiter at that time also. HIGHLY recommend you do this, regardless of whether or not you think it needs it. Trust me.
I got every gauge and light working eventually on the bench before finally installing the cluster back in the car.
It's a royal pain in the *** to remove that cluster if you don't have any of the trim/padding already removed...
but once done, it turned out to be one of the more satisfying projects I've undertaken on the car, not to mention a bigtime money saver. Companies out there that restore these instrument clusters want big $$$.
It's simple stuff once you're into it. Have at it!
Thanks for the encouragement!
Definitely want the shop manual and schematics next!
I'm not against punting when I have to, but I'd rather restore to spec than modify unnecessarily.
It will never be concours bait, but even if I do most things myself, I don't want to just kluge stuff on the cheap if I can actually afford to do it right.