First off, I really appreciate all the help I've gotten from everyone on here thus far! Now onto the good stuff

I'm slowly starting to tackle all the electrical quirks in the 84 I just bought. Just got headlights taken care of and now onto...the dash! I've read through all the info listed on www.batee.com and now I'm kinda stuck because I got a combination of multiple problems listed on there and don't know where to start first. Here it goes..

1. The dash cuts in and out on its own. Doesn't cut totally out, it just gets super dark. Loose/bad grounds and cracked solder joints?

2. It always starts off with the volts illuminated even if the switch is set to coolant temp. I can flip the switch between volts and coolant temps a few times and then it illuminates the coolant temperature just fine. Dirty switch maybe?

3. The tachometer and tach number lights up fine but theres no fluctuation with rpms. If I shine a light on it, the bars look stuck around 800 rpms no matter how fast I'm going. I'm lost on that one!

4. Annnnd the speedometer. Both sides of it (mph and kph) stays lit up with the key on. The green bars that go up to indicate speed never appear and speed gauge at the bottom doesn't work either. It appears to have a shadow of "1" all the time and thats all I get out of it. Lost Again!

I began checking all the grounds under hood last night and found multiple grounds and NUMEROUS wires and plugs that were unhooked. I called up the previous owner and he said those gauges (speedo and tach) started acting up after he pulled the engine to rebuild it which is also when he pulled the entire Crossfire setup and went with a Quadrajet. His exact quote last night was, "I couldn't remember where all the grounds and a bunch of little wires went so I just left 'em hangin."

I've already pulled the cluster and began checking for cracked solder joints. I'm also gonna go on ahead and replace ALL the bulbs and sockets in the cluster while I have it out. My question is, how do I figure out which grounds (left hanging) go to the dash and whats the issue with the speedo and tach? And if it'd be helpful, I can post pictures of the grounds "left hanging." And again, a huge thanks to everyone for their help so far!

 

Get a can of Caig's DeOxit D5 contact cleaner, this is the best electrical contact cleaner I have ever used. Next. you CANNOT leave wires dangling. You need to trace every one of them and connect them to where they belong, it is very likely why you don't have some cluster readouts. If the cluster ground is not connected, your cluster won't do anything, it will be totally dark. You have a time consuming job, but it will likely cure a lot of your cluster problems.

 

Your dark panel is very likely a ground issue. It is one of the dangling wires probly on the drivers side that went to a bell housing bolt. Get an FSM or obtain a wiring schematic to sort out what you "have dangling" Some of it goes to CFI stuff but you need to find out what and kill it properly