This thing is driving me crazy.

I have an 84 auto. New battery, alternator and starter.

I've had an issue with my dash and have tried many fixes that I've read about on the archives here and batee.com but I'm stumped. I need someone who can point me in the right direction.

Let me try to describe the symptoms.

First of all, the voltage meter will give me a high voltage warning, the dash gets bright and then goes back to normal.
I'm sure its in the dash and not the charging system because I verified the voltage with a hand held voltmeter when the condition occurred the hand held voltmeter continued to read normal. ~14.3v
When the dash flickers sometimes the trip odometer will say something ridiculous like 2935 miles and the average mpg will be like .2. The fuel guage will read either high or low for a few seconds and go back to normal.

It seems to me the dash is resetting and batee mentions:

"If C6 in power supply shorts, will cause Vsb (+5v) to go to 0V and will cause Voltage display and Oil Temp to climb. +5V regulator DM162 will get very hot."

So, I can't figure out what needs to be replaced.

I've removed the cluster twice. I've re-soldered all the pins that connect the two circuit boards together and added the extra ground wire as per batee.com.

Please help.
(I still think I deserve to own a Corvette!)

 

Intermittent problems are the hardest ones to find and fix. You have to be monitoring the circuit that fails at the time it fails. You might try replacing C6, but my experience with electrolytic capacitors is that if they short, they stay shorted. Replace the voltage regulator too. The other thing is to keep driving it and hope that the failing part finally totally burns out and then you can find it and replace it.

 

Thanks for your response.
So are you saying it's unlikely that C6 shorted because it's intermittent? I can replace dm-162 and C6.
I think I can get the cap at radio shack, not so sure about the regulator. If you have help here I'll accept it as well.
Thank you!