I have a 85 Berlinetta and the digital speedometer and tach lights stared blinking on and off eradically then recently the dash just disappeared permanantly. Sometimes as I'm turning the car off the display will blink on then off real fast. what should I do?

 

Come on can no one help me. I can't drive the car without a speedo.

 

Sure you can drive w/o speedo I hardly look at mine just glance at the tack I know the speed.

But it Sounds like a short or lose bulb, not many people have the dash. Best thing is to take it apart and look.

 

I Know its not the bulb because the display will light up for about a second when I turn it off. Let me rephrase that can't drive without a speedo. I just got my license and one ticket means losing it.

 

turning on and off real fast when turning the car off sounds like a capacitor problem perhaps, not a capacitor for a audio system for anyone who is confused by this statement


I imagine that it would be possible to get an aftermarket speedo that would hook up to the vss so at least u would have a speedo, also try shining a flashlight towards the screen while the car is running,can u see anything?

 

Yeah I'll try that.

 

How would I check the capacitator and if there is something wrong with it how do I fix it?

 

im not sure if the digital dashes even have a capacitor, if they do it should look like a small blue battery, usally with a black stripe on it, it would have to be replaced with the same voltage what not

 

There are thousands of different types of capacitors, they dont all look like 'little blue batteries'. Good luck trying to find that.

Try pushing on the front of your gauge cluster, or pushing down on the dash. I had a bad connection with my cluster before, the connector didnt fully seat in the connectors behind the dash. Every time I'd hit a bump or hit the dash the gauges stopped working. Try it out, mess around with it some, see if it works.

 

if you read the previous posts, u will see that only when he turns off the ignition does it light up for a second.......

 

Thnx I'll try it and get back to you. If that doesn't work I think I'll just replace the whole dash with a 4th gen.

 

I guess I should add that this all happened after I installed a new radio and replaced all the speakers.

 

The speedo readout is a LCD display - no bulbs to burn out. It's possible that the readout FLASH when you turn the car on is due to power being applied somewhere in the cluster - but once the power gets thru the cluster the circuitry inside the cluster isn't working right and can't maintain the display as it should.

I have seen the exact same FLASH of the speedo during startup followed by a black readout,........... but can't say exactly why that happens. I assume that the dash is finally dead after all these years. The earattic blinking and then a black readout seem to show the painful death to one of the circuits somewhere in that thing !

P.S. New radio and speakers should be unrelated unless you tapped into the dash cluster wiring harness - & I'm sure you didn't do that.

 

Sounds like he used a ground for the dash lights or something, ive done this many many times

check the ground on your radio, if its connected to a wire that was there before drill your own ground

im pretty sure thats what it is

 

gotta love those digi dashes..sounds close to a problem i had with mine...under the cover on the passenger side under the dash youll see a black box...when mine did that there was a burnt out diode in that box ...and youll love this gm sanded all part numbers off of the components i couldnt find the right one but i had a spare box and replaced the whole thing..fixed the problem..so if you can find what piece is burnt tell me where on the board it is and ill see if i have it on my spare box..ill mail it to you..

 

Thanks i'll check that. I don't think its dead because the camaro was hadly used. I'm the second owner and the Camaro was just sitting outside at the previos owners house for about 10 years. I got it for a sweet $600

 

check the ground to it...

 

I looked and didn't see a box. am I looking in the wrong place?

 

It's doubfull that your problem is located in the Light Module....... ( The black box mentioned by "junkie" ). When the light module is at fault for a non-functional Digital dash the problem is only apparent when the driver turns on the Headlights (or Park lights). In that event the Light Module will fail to send current thru the "DIM" circuits/wiring and the display doesn't light up.

Does the rest of the interior "backlighting" work correctly ??? You know; the lights that come on in the radio/shift console/Control Pods/ (Ect...)

If I read your question right - your display is always dead. Your just seeing a little flash on the display when the ignition is turned on..... ??




I think your dash is dead ------->

 

Yeah all the rest of the lights work. Dang that sucks I really liked that dash!

 

I had an 87 Olds with a digital dash. I lost my dash after a spell of rain. So I assumed water leak.

What I did was took apart the instrument panel. I then preceded to experiment by turning the car to the one postion, and moving the cluster and wiggling various plug ins. I looked around and found a wire that turned out to have a bar spot, I then covered the wire and it worked fine. Perhaps when installing the stereo you jammed a wire and now it is grounding the dash out.

If you want to keep the dash, try pulling out the stereo and seeing if it will work again. If it does reinstall the stereo one piece at a time checking along the way for dash problems.

In my Olds there were Blue bulbs that created the display. If those blubs burnout you are basically done with the dash... I don't know if the Camaro digital dash was the same idea or not.

 

its easy to drive a car with no speedo

mine never worked dont bother me