I have An 82 K5 Blazer and I Am re wiring the whole harness by myself. I came into a gauge cluster out of a 1990 and it’s basically the same except it has an electrical speedometer gear. It came with the DRAC box and I was hoping to just buy an electrical Speedo gear for the transmission and wire it in. However reading other threads I saw it wires into the ECM along with the DRAC to give an accurate reading. Do I need to stick with a mechanical Speedo or is it possible for me to run the electrical speedometer without a ECM or VSS?
CK5
Register an account today to become a member! Once signed in, you'll be able to participate on this site by adding your own topics and posts, as well as connect with other members.
82 Blazer speedo
- Thread starter Kray
- Start date
The cluster I took out is oem and the speedometer is mechanical, and the cluster I happened to come across is also OEM just a later model year with an electronic speedometer.
Again My question is anyone knows is if the electric speedometer can be hooked up without an ECM.
but to answer your question the 82 cluster is a piece of crap, and I need to replace all the gauges inside it which was gonna cost me a pretty penny regardless and I have this other option I wanted to explore and see if it’ll work for me
but to answer your question the 82 cluster is a piece of crap, and I need to replace all the gauges inside it which was gonna cost me a pretty penny regardless and I have this other option I wanted to explore and see if it’ll work for me
Now we’re getting somewhere
The replacement you found, is it the version that also has the cable drive on the back? If so, yes you can use it. The signal drive is for the ECM, but not hooking it up won’t affect the Speedo
The replacement you found, is it the version that also has the cable drive on the back? If so, yes you can use it. The signal drive is for the ECM, but not hooking it up won’t affect the Speedo
Yes you can run it without an ECM. But you need to add a DRAC and something to output the 40PPR the DRAC is looking for. Perhaps someone by now makes a bolt on speedo gear driven "box" that will feed the speedo directly (can't recall it's input, probably 2 or 4k PPM) eliminating the need for the DRAC. And/or swap to a 90-91 NP241 that has the right speed sensor/tone ring for the DRAC.
My expectation is that would all be prohibitively costly.
Might be better off selling that cluster (apparently popular for LS swaps into the trucks, they are asking a lot on eBay for them) and just spending the money on a known good cluster that uses the speedo cable.
The later clusters are better, but not a whole lot than your earlier one. Electronic speedometer and slightly better circuit layout are the only improvements IMO, the gauges are identical in function as previous. Unless someone burned it up, or really destroyed the flexible circuit, I'd bet money you could make most if not all of yours work. But I know PO's really screw things up. So I can't say for sure without seeing it.
My expectation is that would all be prohibitively costly.
Might be better off selling that cluster (apparently popular for LS swaps into the trucks, they are asking a lot on eBay for them) and just spending the money on a known good cluster that uses the speedo cable.
The later clusters are better, but not a whole lot than your earlier one. Electronic speedometer and slightly better circuit layout are the only improvements IMO, the gauges are identical in function as previous. Unless someone burned it up, or really destroyed the flexible circuit, I'd bet money you could make most if not all of yours work. But I know PO's really screw things up. So I can't say for sure without seeing it.
