The message to which you are about to reply is shown first. GO TO REPLY FORM



 VIEW    REPLY TO THIS MESSAGE    PRINT   SAVE 

Instrument lighting, gauge reading wierdness 200 1987

posted by  kraynek, back in CO on  Thu Jul 17 07:15 CST 2003
Author: [PROFILE] [EVERY POST] [THREADS] [BEST POSTS] RSS Feed     [IGNORE ALL POSTS]
last visit: Sun Jun 15 03:43 CST 2008
[RELATED]

It's been a while since i posted. . .the drive from pittsburgh to denver went great. I still can't get over the fact that a 16 year old car will cruise at 85 all day in 110 degree heat without a problem. Well, without a MAJOR problem. . .

So here's my sample problem for the trip. As we left pittsburgh (at noon instead of 5am. . .had to get the AC fixed!), i noticed that the volt gauge was showing about 10 volts. We stopped and checked with the meter, turns out the volt gauge was wrong. I turn on the headlights, and the gauge drops to nothing. I turn on the foglights, the gauge drops a little and the tach drops to nothing. (more on that later) I turn the bulb dimmer rheostat, and the volt gauge fluctuates with that turning. (the wire for the gauge reading is not connected to the circuit for the dimmer) The next morning, as we pulled out of terra haute, Indiana, i noticed that the instrument cluster lighting wasn't working, and probably wasn't the entire day before. Everything else went fine, and i was lucky enough to have a flashlight to use to read my speed until dawn.

After i got here and got motivated, I took out the instrument cluster and messed around a little (managed to break the oil pressure gauge again). I pulled off the two wires between the coolant temp/fuel gauge plugs and the speedo plug and neither had any voltage reading. I turned the lights on and off, turn signals, flashers, etc, and everything worked. (these wires attach to two spade connectors that are soldered to the same post on the back of the cluster). anyone know where these wires run? could they be my problem?

an additional clue (and the thing about the fogs) is that i ghetto rigged a wire from my foglight switch to the back of my instrument cluster. I soldered a wire onto a instrument cluster light, and screwed it in to the last socket. it's a green light that looks like a parking light symbol. It comes on when the fogs are on, turns off when they're off, glows faintly while the headlights are on, and turns off when both the fogs and headlights are on.

I can't find anything wrong with what i've done, but it obviously has to be fixed. I'm thinking about tearing out all of the horrid wiring that i've done over the past few years and finally doing it right this weekend. Any other ideas as to what went wrong?

thanks for the help






USERNAME
Use "claim to be" below if you don't want to log in.
PASSWORD
I don't have an account. Sign me up.
CLAIM TO BE
Use only if you don't want to login (post anonymously).
ENTER CAPTCHA CODE
This is required for posting anonymously.
OPTIONS notify by email
Available only to user accounts.
SUBJECT
MODEL/YEAR
MESSAGE

DICTIONARY
LABEL(S) +
IMAGE URL *
[IMAGE LIBRARY (UPLOAD/SELECT)]

* = Field is optional.

+ = Enter space delimited labels for this post. An example entry: 240 muffler


©Jarrod Stenberg 1997-2022. All material except where indicated.


All participants agree to these terms.

Brickboard.com is not affiliated with nor sponsored by AB Volvo, Volvo Car Corporation, Volvo Cars of North America, Inc. or Ford Motor Company. Brickboard.com is a Volvo owner/enthusiast site, similar to a club, and does not intend to pose as an official Volvo site. The official Volvo site can be found here.