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I got a K9800 instrument cluster from the UK. It came from a 91 245, which is what I've got. I mainly wanted it for the tach, and to have a spare speedo. When it came in, I temporarily installed it, to check the functions. The first things I noticed were the different warning lights, which were cool, and the fact that the temp gauge doesn't have the mark at the halfway point. There's also no service reminder circuit.
My 245 has been having an intermittent overheating problem, which I attributed to the new thermostat I just installed. My car has also been idling a bit high after driving at highway speeds, which I could clear by blipping the key off and on quickly, and the idle would settle down. A few days ago I realized that the same drill would cause the temp gauge to return to normal, which pretty much told me the hight temp reading was a glitch.
After installing the new cluster, the temp ran normal all the time. I pulled the cluster today to swap the tach and warning light strips into the old cluster, and found something very curious... The UK clusters (as well as the other European clusters, I'd assume) don't have the temp compensation board. The holes in the pc board are there, but not the pins. The jumper wire is there from the factory. That's the way mine will be going back together, but it begs the question... Why did they want to buffer the reading for the American audience, but not for others?
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1991 245, 61k miles, looking for a 5 speed 92-93 245 cheap.
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