Tempermental dash lights
Thread Starter
Instructor
Joined: Jan 2013
Posts: 212
Likes: 0
Tempermental dash lights
My cluster will randomly go dark. I lose all lighting except for the bottom half of my speedo. Everything is still registering, its just very hard to see because it is so dark. It randomly lights back up like nothing happened. Im assuming its just a loose bulb somewhere? I dont even know whete to start. Its an 89 so its the atari dash.
Racer
Joined: Oct 2011
Posts: 312
Likes: 0
From: state of insanity
My 84 was doing the same thing. talked to a guy in kingman arizona that rebuilds these things. he said IIRC they have a temp over heat sensor in the cluster that goes bad. i sent it to him,he rebuilt it,with new screens.its been perfect every since. he used to have a add in ebay selling his repair service.probably others. not saying thats your problem,but that was mine. good luck.
Racer
Joined: Aug 2012
Posts: 279
Likes: 2
From: Las Vegas Nevada
Atari dash... 
First, check the fuse box and inspect the fuses that say: LCD, GUAGES, CLSTR, and TAIL. The reason I put TAIL (tail lights) is because I had that fuse blow on me one day, which strangely caused my guages to dim permanently. I didn't realize my fuse was blown until I was pulled over that night, and when I replaced it the guages were back to normal.
Next, find all the ground wires for the cluster. I believe there are 3 or 4 hidden, but I've only had issues with 1. That one was located near the slave master cylinder on the left side of the transmission. It was dangling around after I had my clutch + flywheel replaced and the losers just let it hang.
If both of those fail, might need to rebuild or fix yourself. Forgot the name of the guy, but someone might chime in with a link to his website for the whole process.
First, check the fuse box and inspect the fuses that say: LCD, GUAGES, CLSTR, and TAIL. The reason I put TAIL (tail lights) is because I had that fuse blow on me one day, which strangely caused my guages to dim permanently. I didn't realize my fuse was blown until I was pulled over that night, and when I replaced it the guages were back to normal.
Next, find all the ground wires for the cluster. I believe there are 3 or 4 hidden, but I've only had issues with 1. That one was located near the slave master cylinder on the left side of the transmission. It was dangling around after I had my clutch + flywheel replaced and the losers just let it hang.
If both of those fail, might need to rebuild or fix yourself. Forgot the name of the guy, but someone might chime in with a link to his website for the whole process.
Safety Car
Joined: Aug 2009
Posts: 3,751
Likes: 276
From: Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
My cluster will randomly go dark. I lose all lighting except for the bottom half of my speedo. Everything is still registering, its just very hard to see because it is so dark. It randomly lights back up like nothing happened. Im assuming its just a loose bulb somewhere? I dont even know whete to start. Its an 89 so its the atari dash.
http://www.batee.com/corvette/dcrg/index.htm
