I've got a 78 Elky that I'm having problems with the gauges. Apparently
they are on a circuit board or there's a single feed to power them somehow.
I haven't crawled up under the dash yet so I'm not sure what's up there.

The Elky has the factory gauge package (fuel, volts, oil pres, and water
temp). Not long ago, they started "sticking" and not registering at all. A
light tap on the dash would bring them back so I know it's not a blown fuse.
Lately they won't come back up at all - maybe I banged too hard?

Anyway, what do I look for to get them operational again? Is there a single
wire feed, ground, and do I have to pull the panel to fix it?

Never worked on this "new" stuff before with circuits.

Any help or suggestions would be appreciated.

Thanks...

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Dale McIntosh
ACES #1709
Team Chevelle #92
www.dalesplace.com (http://www.dalesplace.com)

Dale sounds like a loose connection. My 78 elky has lights instead of guages (you wanna trade http://www.chevelles.com/forum/wink.gif ) Mine has a large plug that slides into a socket and contacts the printed circuit. I have had to clean the contact area to get my cluster to work. Didn't seem to affect the lights just the gas guage. There is also the possiblity that there is a dash panel voltage regulator. They can be a mechincal device and if mal functioning will give you an intermittant problem. Banging on the dash could have freed up the contacts and now they are totally gone.

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Philip Valentine
Gold Member #42
Under Construction Car & Page (http://www.citlink.net/~bowtie)

Dale, there is a connector behind the dash that Philip talked about and the G-body Monte Carlo SS has the same problem and the connector is usually the problem. You will have to pull the cluster to access the plug to clean and tighten the connection. Try pushing on the dash at the top-center of the cluster with the engine running and see if that helps, if it does, the connection is the problem. Look here for more info; www.montecarloss.com (http://www.montecarloss.com) .

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Leo Paugh
Maryland Chevelle Club #017
The bitterness of poor quality remains long after the sweetness of the low price is forgotten.

MarylandChevelleClub (http://www.clark.net/pub/chevelle/mcc.htm)

[This message has been edited by chev64 (edited 07-29-2000).]

chevy64: Gently tapping the top center of the dash pad did bring the gauges back. How hard is it to remove the cluster? Any tricks from underneath or rear? Has tilt column w/automatic, steering wheel need to come off?



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Dale McIntosh
ACES #1709
Team Chevelle #92
www.dalesplace.com (http://www.dalesplace.com)

Dale, I haven't had a G-body cluster out in a while, so I don't remember,but I think I did drop the column and don't forget to unhook the shift indicator cable from the column first. I have a 86 MCSS that I need to do that to as well as some other work so I guess I better get to it. I got that tip from the MCSS site.

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Leo Paugh
Maryland Chevelle Club #017
The bitterness of poor quality remains long after the sweetness of the low price is forgotten.

MarylandChevelleClub (http://www.clark.net/pub/chevelle/mcc.htm)

Can anyone give me any starters on dropping the instrument pod on a 78 Elky, or directions to a G-Body site that could help?

Thanks,


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Dale McIntosh
ACES #1709
Team Chevelle #92
www.dalesplace.com (http://www.dalesplace.com)

Dale, Try this, I did a quick look up and I think this might help. There are many technical articles on the montecarloss website, go to www.montecarloss.com. (http://www.montecarloss.com.) and click on Technical info and scroll down to the electrical section. Hope this helps.

[This message has been edited by chev64 (edited 08-08-2000).]

[This message has been edited by chev64 (edited 08-08-2000).]

Removing the G body dash bezel is fairly easy. There is no need to remove the steering wheel or the steering column. On the outer bezel there are three screws above the instrument cluster and four screws on the bottom. If factory original all of these screws have torx heads. The plastic cover has four screws holding it. The actual instruments are removed by removing 9/32 head screws (sometimes a couple of these will have ¼ heads) The instruments simply plug into the circuit card. The clock has a couple of wires attached and the speedo has a click on connector for the speedo cable. The circuit card has four studs with self-locking 10mm nuts. Remove these four 10mm nuts and the circuit card comes out. Good Luck.

Exactly what I needed G-Man...thanks. Apparently it's been into before or the Elkys were different, no torx screws at all. Connector to circuit card is at bottom right of pod. Cleaned it and it's working again...don't know how long, but it's working.

Thanks again all for your help. http://www.chevelles.com/forum/biggrin.gif http://www.chevelles.com/forum/biggrin.gif http://www.chevelles.com/forum/biggrin.gif



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Dale McIntosh
ACES #1709
Team Chevelle #92
www.dalesplace.com (http://www.dalesplace.com)

Your welcome. Had my 79 apart several times trying to get my fuel gage to work. I even changed the tank sending unit still didn't work. Got a fuel gage at the wrecking yard and stuck it in darn thing has been working great for almost a year.