This is a great forum. Many thanks to those who have already answered some of my questions with their knowledge and experience.

My problem concerns some erratic lighting on the instrument cluster of my 2002 Coupe with 23,000 miles. While driving down the road the instrument panel lights will flash off momentarily (less than a second) every couple of minutes. The remaining dash panel lights (radio, climate control, etc.) seem to be unaffected and the gauges themselves don't drop during these outages, just the instrument lights. I've read about grounding issues with Vettes but I would think that all lights would be affected if this were the problem. I seem to remember that the instrument lights always did this, even when the car was new but the situation seems to be much more frequent lately. Any ideas? I had the light problem checked while the car was still under warranty but, alas, it was occuring way too infrequently for the dealer to diagnose the problem. Of course, now that the warranty is up the problem really wants to rear its ugly head! I've also read about the wacky fuel gauge readings (which affects me big time below 1/4 tank) and I'll try those suggestions. Very minor issues indeed for an otherwise awesome automobile but it's the little things sometimes that can be very annoying.

Thanks again everyone for your help and/or suggestions.

 

You may want to remove your cluster and make very sure that the connections in that area and behind the cluster are fully seated. Before you do that, every electrical component on your car is tied to chassis ground. The way it gets to ground is not as simple as it seams and the ground connections are not engineered as well as the +12 VDC connectors which are weather tight. NONE of the ground connectors are weather tight.

All of the interior electrical components are tied into something called a "SPLICE PACK" they are labled in the service manual as SP-100, 101, 201 ect ect...

Here is what the SP 101 looks like:





From there, the SP ground wire is routed down to the chassis ground. In the case of the interior, there are four. The ones that you are interested in are inside the drivers and passengers foot wells, just below the door hinges. The connector will look like this:



It will be tucked into a triangle shaped recess area. It will be difficult to get to the nut to remove the connector.

The Splice Pack that you are looking for is under the dash and it will be tapped to another wiring harness running in that area. if you need me to, i can find it and take a picture of it.

Once you find the SP, make sure that the wires are in good shape, tight. You can disassemble the connector and inspect the connections inside. They can be:

Corroded:

The connections inside the connectors can be loose and not make good contact with the pins inside the connector.

Hope the pictures come through. If not, e-mail me and i will send then to you. bill327@msn.com

Bill C