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Taking the instrument cluster out will allow you to fix both of these things. Get a new instrument light bulb from the dealer or a junkyard. Then pull your cluster- pull off the dimmer and headlight knob, pop out the panel under these, and the square blank panels on the right. Two screws each side of cluster, extra metal bracket on left comes out too. All wiring pulls off the back. Note that with no tach, the red/white wire in dash doesn't get connected to anything. There's at least one ground wire to the cluster- it's not in a connector. Note which terminal you take it off of. The rest of the plugs just pull and can only go back one way. There's no big speedometer cable in an 87, just a 3-pin plug. Keep the steering wheel straight and the cluster slides right out towards you.
The bulb holders just turn and pull. They can be a little fiddly going back in occasionally. As for the temp gauge, on the brown circuit board you'll find a funny looking tan circuit board, a little strip the size of computer memory modules. This has a 4-pin connector. It probably has oxidized pins. CLean them with an eraser carefully or simply plug it in 10 times. The problem is in this board- you can confirm this next time you have a problem by just giving the dash top a whack- if the gauge returns to a normal reading, the problem's in the dash. Really common problem. My 86 does it about once a week. A new Temperature Compensation board may cure it. The connector is still lousy though.
Good luck!
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Rob Bareiss, New London CT ::: 86 244DL, 87 244DL, 88 744GLE, 91 244: 808K total
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