what is the deal with the 91/92 years instrument clusters in these

[R77K10]

ok so i have a 91 s-10 right now and my brother has a 92

well the instrument panels in both are non digital

both are totally screwed up

in mine nothing works at all and all the guages are pegged one way or another

and when you turn on the headlights the temp and fuel guages will peg even more farther than they already are pegged,

and the shift gear speed light wont light up when the headlights are turned off and the check guages light will light up very dimly- but only with the shift gear speed light lighting up

oh and no cluster lights at all,

totally screwed up

checked fuses and all that and they are fine

anyone else seen this or know something i dont

is there a controller of somekind for the panels in these trucks that goes screwy ?

or ?

im not thinking that this is that rare of an issue on these later first gen trucks,



thanks for anything

 

[GotBoykins]

Prolly the circuit card.

 

[HarryH3]

My '91 has the Star Wars digital dash. So far it's held up far better than I ever thought it would.

For your setup, the first thing I would do is pull the cluster and unplug the main harness to it. Clean all the connections on the plug and in its connector and clean up any ground connections that you can find that go to the cluster. Very likely that everything will start working again when you plug it all back together.

 

[Muddytazz]

My 90 has the star wars digital dash also. I had to replace the board on the back because half of the gauges didn't work. Now I just have to figure out why my fuel gauge doesn't read accurately.

Harry, if you ever have to replace that board on the back, do a search on ebay. That is where I got mine

 

[HarryH3]

Mine has one minor intermittent problem with the yellow and red LED's on the tach bar. Sometimes they light, sometimes they don't. It's been like that since it was new. I thought about having it fixed under warranty, but figured that if I let the dealer take the whole dash apart then it would probably squeak and rattle forever. Everything else has worked great, so I left it alone.

My gas gauge isn't very accurate either. When it gets down to 1/4 tank, it's time to be close to a gas station! At two bars, it's running on fumes...

 

[R77K10]

star wars lol

im going to start removing the instrument cluster today, actually in about a half an hour

so that i can at least eliminate all the connections and such in it

ive had a coupel ppl suggest its the sending units in the engine compartment, but i just cant see it being all of them being bad ?

i could see maybe one or two,

but all of them ?

hmm

any reccomendations on techniques to clean contacts and such in something like this ?

i have a tube of dielectric grease, i suppose i could or should use it for this ?

no ?

thanks

 

[HarryH3]

Start by cleaning all the connections with some rubbing alcohol on a Q-Tip. That does a nice job of shining 'em up.

 

[R77K10]

alrighty- well i removed the instrument cluster earlier and i see no damage or dirt or corrosion or anything but i cleaned up all the contacts with alcohol anyways and well the fuel guage and temp guage and oil pressure gauge appear to be working now

however the speedo and the voltmeter are still dead

and i dont know how it acts with the headlights turned on yet sinc ei havent put the switch back in or anything else


i saw a really interested warning label on the top side of the cluster housing that says do not disassemble except in static free station

hmmm

i dont like that

thats kinda crazy

what in the heck is in these clusters that is so sensitive ?

anyone got any ideas on the voltmeter or speedo ?

it is VSS type speedo

what to check and where ?

i dont know much at all about this later stuff



thanks for anything further

 

[1979jimmy350]

the red and yellow lines for the tach are lit by a light bulb and its very easy to replace them they are NAPA part number PC194

Mine has one minor intermittent problem with the yellow and red LED's on the tach bar. Sometimes they light, sometimes they don't. It's been like that since it was new. I thought about having it fixed under warranty, but figured that if I let the dealer take the whole dash apart then it would probably squeak and rattle forever. Everything else has worked great, so I left it alone.

My gas gauge isn't very accurate either. When it gets down to 1/4 tank, it's time to be close to a gas station! At two bars, it's running on fumes...

 

[1979jimmy350]

alrighty- well i removed the instrument cluster earlier and i see no damage or dirt or corrosion or anything but i cleaned up all the contacts with alcohol anyways and well the fuel guage and temp guage and oil pressure gauge appear to be working now

however the speedo and the voltmeter are still dead

and i dont know how it acts with the headlights turned on yet sinc ei havent put the switch back in or anything else


i saw a really interested warning label on the top side of the cluster housing that says do not disassemble except in static free station

hmmm

i dont like that

thats kinda crazy

what in the heck is in these clusters that is so sensitive ?

anyone got any ideas on the voltmeter or speedo ?

it is VSS type speedo

what to check and where ?

i dont know much at all about this later stuff



thanks for anything further

check the VSS buffer that is attached to the computer, as for the volt meter it could be a bad ground somwhere, by the way i hit 1000 with this post

 

[HarryH3]

The bulbs work fine, they both come on together and go off together. It's a loose connection somewhere, but it doesn't bother me nearly enough to start trying to up inside the dash to mess with it. My big ol' hands just don't fit up in there without taking a lot of stuff apart first.

 

[R77K10]

lol @ 1000 hehe

where is the VSS buffer box in these things ?

its near, or on the ECM ?

i see that its not on the back of the cluster housing like it is in the F bodies and other vehicles

and which ground where would i need to be checking for the voltmeter functions ?


thanks for further