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Went to replace CEL light bulb that didn't work, I pulled the center console gauge set and noticed that there was a piece of black tape covering the part of the circuit that would seem to attach to the oil temperature gauge. (Lower right of the picture) The oil temp gauge seems to be working fine, I figure the three-prong connection to the gauge is the electrical connections that it needs. The circuit board connection isn't needed.
I can't find any circuit diagram that references pin 6 (orange) wire. 8A - 40 of the service manual doesn't show pin 6 on the diagram. So, was that part of the circuit board not connected to the gauge, and the black gaffer's tape was factory installed? As far as I know, no one has replaced any of the gauges, so I don't know why the tape is there.
I would just put it back together as I found it, but the +12VDC trace (for the gauge illumination lights) runs under the tape, and I am not getting 12VDC to the three bulbs on the left side of the gauge set. I am curious to pull the tape off and see if the 12VDC trace has been cut, but not sure if I need to put the tape back or not.
Last edited by Jtmirolli; Oct 1, 2022 at 08:49 AM.
I have an 81 and that tape is there on mine as well. Looks like that’s to keep it from shorting and sure looked factory to me. Don’t have answer for your lights but maybe this helps?
Do you both have oil temp gauges instead of clocks? It looks like there is another connector that goes to the 3-spades on the back of the instrument in the clock space (bottom right, when viewd from the front). Perhaps the tape is factory, for the non-shorting reason mentioned.
That black tape is factory and does keep the power leg on the circuit board for the factory clock from shorting out on the gauge cluster. This was done when the car came with the ETR radio which had a clock in it's display and the oil temperature gauge was installed in place of the clock. The oil temp gauge has its own connector which is separate from the gauge cluster printed circuit board.
This is my 77. Just finished rebuilding my gauge cluster and installing a fan indicator light. The photo was about the fan indicator light, but look lower left. black tape over hot terminal on the clock. This is always hot even with car off.
yup, black tape looks correct to me.
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Black tape on console circuit board
