I was wondering what would be involved with swapping the cluster out of my '86 Bird, which only has the speedo, gas gauge, and a bunch of dummy lights, for a cluster which has the above plus a tach, and all the gauges (volts, oil pressure, temperature). Will the new cluster just hook up & plug in in place of my old one? Do I need to change any of the sender units aswell? Thanks

 

hello, i know that you will at least have to change out the sensors. the old ones are like an on-off, and you will need the resistence type. other than that i don't know what else you'll need. best of luck, tom

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86 iroc 305tpi auto. mild cam

 

I think your speedo is also cable driven, where the gage styles are all electronic. fomr 86-92.

In short:
If you have the idiot lights, check to see if you have a cable for the speedo.

If you have gages, you should have an electrouic speedo.

John

 

Hi,

I did a cluster swap from a 83 bird to a late 85 bird (lights only) and found out that the wiring was completely diffrent..the wiring of my 85 was the same as an 87 but I had VSS box aat the rear in combination with the cable drivin speedo in stead of an electric speedo.... As the 83 bird didn't use the 700R it didn't had the VSS box either so I rewired my dash and mounted the yellow VSS box from the 85 cluster to the 83 cluster..everything is working ok now..

If wiring is the same you still need to check for VSS (TC lockup needs it) and run a wire from tach connection on dist to dash...and of course replace temp and oil sensor....for rewiring the dash check tech section on my home page..www.home.zonnet.nl/marald

greetings
marald


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Pontiac Firebird 1985
LG4 Qjet

 

Well my car's a 5spd, so I shouldn't have to worry about that. The biggest reason for me doing a swap like this, is I currently don't have a tach, and I want one... a stock looking one. I'm not a fan of the big sport tach on the dash look.

 

That's exactly what I'm gonna do. I only have speedo and fuel as well as the dummy lights. I found a cluster with speedo, fuel coolant temp, rpm, voltage, and oil pressure from another 87 firebird that I'm gonna try and swap in to mine.

-Jordan