90 blazer dashboard woes

[awhillwick]

the kid and i were out on the property yesterday. when we restarted truck to come back to house, noticed ALL gages where frozen. cooked battery on the way back. when i load tested battery had 185cca. replaced battery, checked all fuses, the two grounds that i know of. truck running fine but no change to gages, these things have to be related, am i missing the obvious?

 

[Fordum]

You say you cooked the battery. I assume you mean that it boiled. If so, then you lost a ground reference to the alternator, or the voltage regulator failed.
If you have a meter, you need to measure the voltage at the battery when the engine is running.
If its over 14.5, then don't drive it until you find out the problem.
Look to see if you have a separate voltage regulator or if its built into the alt.

If its separate, try running a heavy ground wire over to where its mounted and see if that fixes things.
If so, then you need to find the broken one.

Most of the alts have built in regulators these days, but not all.
If it failed, it might have burned up something on the dash. Some vehicles have voltage regulators for the gauges, and you might have blown that or a fuse.

 

[4X4HIGH]

There are grounds on the A pillar just behind the gauge cluster that have several grounds on it and a few are for the gauges.

 

[4xcrazy]

Check the fuses, there is one for the gauges and if thats blown, they won't work and also the alternator doesn't charge the battery. I fought a fuse/shorting problem on a road trip not too long ago, which is how I found out about the lack of charging when that fuse pops.