Digital Dash Interchangeability

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Mar 16, 2009 | 06:52 PM

silver86

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From: Woodstock Georgia

Digital Dash Interchangeability

I've been researching this all day without a definitive answer. I'm looking to see if another year digi dash will work correctly in my '86. I know the 89's had differents bulbs and cruise control servos. But, aside from the 84, are 85-88 dash clusters interchangeable (excluding small items such as upshift indicators and what-not)?

TIA

Mar 16, 2009 | 07:18 PM

engle1147

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From: Tampa Florida

Quote:

Originally Posted by silver86

Like you said there are differences in the LCD displays pannels no doubt. I'm not familiar with the "control servo" differences your talking about..I'd like to hear more about that....where did you get that info from? The 84-89 cluster assemblies are all plug-n-play. As long as you swap out the entire cluster your good to go. Most of the rebuild guys/shops want you to replace your year cluster with the same year cluster taking yours as a core. IMHO the '89 cluster are the ones to have since most of the revisions / power supply "bugs" were worked out of them with Xenon bulb that tend to bake the PCB cards/electronics less.....if everyone only wanted to buy the '89 clusters the rebuild guys would be stuck with all those other years of clusters.....in a nut shell this is pretty much why your not told/assured that other years will work in your application.
Also the DIC switch pannel will work with any year 80's C4 cluster as well. DIC switch pannels for manual transmissions cars have and extra wire for the "overdrive" display function.

Mar 16, 2009 | 08:14 PM

silver86

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From: Woodstock Georgia

Thanks for the info.

Here's where I got the cruise control information:

http://forums.corvetteforum.com/c4-t...ngability.html

Last edited by silver86; Mar 17, 2009 at 07:57 AM. Reason: Because I'm an idiot and can't spell.

Mar 16, 2009 | 08:53 PM

engle1147

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From: Tampa Florida

Quote:

Originally Posted by silver86

Thanks for the info.

Here's were I got the cruise control information:

http://forums.corvetteforum.com/c4-t...ngability.html

Hooked on Vettes knows his stuff from what I've read from his posts. The servo is an external part which should have little to do with the dash cluster outputs....perhaps the connections on/to the servo are different for the '90 and 91s.

Also if you get a hold of an '89 cluster make sure it has the odometer in it already. For the odo 89 is specific for the '89 the 84-88 odo will not work on the 89.

Mar 17, 2009 | 01:07 PM

SunCr

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From: San Diego, Ca

You're suppose to use your old Odo - unscrew the Module and put it on the replacement. The exchange domestic number for the '86 is 25080392 - your old one, if OEM (cruise) should be 25080224. Check the label. Frankly I don't know of any differences other than bulbs (xenon in '89) and ODO motor ('89 had a different #) and whether or not it has Cruise. Ground locations did change, but that's external to the Display.

Mar 17, 2009 | 02:44 PM

engle1147

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From: Tampa Florida

Quote:

Originally Posted by SunCr

The #s listed above sound correct. The odo for the 89 is a 3 wire stepper set up 84-88 is a 2 wire deal which is why a pre '89 odo is not plug n play in an 89 cluster.
Also the power supply on the 84-88 are an extra PCB assembly with mounts on top of the back card....they can be replaced as an assembly. A newer version power supply was integrated into the 89 cluster's main back PCB card...this power supply in any of these early clusters is not related to the cluster's backlight function of the 4 main bulbs xenon or otherwise.

Mar 17, 2009 | 03:05 PM

silver86

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From: Woodstock Georgia

Good stuff, guys. Thanks!

Mar 27, 2009 | 10:05 AM

silver86

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From: Woodstock Georgia

Just wanted to follow this up. I ended up purchasing a rebuilt 1985 cluster. While there were no electronics interchange issues, the housings between the 86's and 85's were notably different. I had to relocate the internal 85 electronics to my 86 housing. I would imagine this was due to the slanting of the 86 and up cluster oposed to the 84-85's flat appearance. Perhaps the housings of the 86-89's are interchangeable, but it's something to check before swapping out to a different year unit. Just FYI.

Other than that, the 85 unit internals work perfectly in the 86 housing.