I recently removed my dash in order to install a new tack and clock since the old clock never worked and the tach was hanging up. Everything else worked on the panel.

I cleaning all the origineal gauges and installing thinks carefully togeter.
After install the dash back, the car starts and all the gauges, clock and lights work correctly. However, after shutting off the car, I noticed the the temp gauge continued to read the temperature as it always did what the temperature was before I shut it down.

When I pulled out the headlight switch or put on the dome light with everything else off, the needle on the temperature gauge goes to the 5 pm position. When I shut the lights off it still stays there.

To reset it, I have to turn the key to the on position and shut it off again.

I have the two grounds to the headlight switch installed. I'm thinking now I may have not placed a washer on the temperature terminals before installing the ribbon harness.

What's happening? Will it harm anything if I leave it alone?

Jeff in CT

It sounds like a ground issue. Does the temp gauge work correctly after the car is restarted(without turning the ignition on and off first)? Is the gauge reading affected when the car is running, and the headlights are turned on? If it still works okay after that, I would not worry about it.

I also noticed that the right front headlight was dim.

I found the problem to be a bad connetion to the right front headlight and a loose connection to horn relay box on the firewall. Funny, but I never touched either during the installation of the clock and dash. :)