comet72

Hi everybody,

First of all, I've got to introduce myself.
Lionel, 20 y.o., I'm a salesman and I live in Lausanne, Switzerland. I'm passionate by American cars since I'm 12. In my garage there's plenty of American cars. 1969 Ford Maverick, 1972 Mercury Comet, 1978 Jeep Cherokee Chief, 1979 Mustang, Mustang Ghia and Mercury Capri. At last, my daily driver, an 1982 Mercury Cougar Sedan.
The 3rd Gen Camaro Convertible was my father's dream car since years ago. He's totally in love with that car, and I can't deny that I am too.

One month ago, after months of searching, I finally found the one: 1989 Z28 IROC-Z Convertible Camaro. 305ci-TBI V8, original 75'000 miles. I bought immediatly, no time for reflection. I bought it pretty cheap but it was a problem with that car. A vandal ****ed up the convertible top, broke the window, went into the car, destroyed the dash with a screwdriver or something and stole the instrument cluster.
It was one 240kph instrument cluster, cable driven. The dash was totally broken, I spent my whole week working on it to repair it. The convertible top is now repaired too.

But today, after fixing the whole wiring behind the dash, I tried to install the OEM 145MPH instrument cluster that I bought on E-Bay last month. And there the problem goes...
I had no problem to install the new instrument cluster but after connecting the two big wiring plugs at the back of the instrument cluster and after putting the speedo cable in, I tried to drive a little...and nothing works well. Here are the problems:

-The oil pressure gauge is completely wrong, constantly moving.
-The fuel gauge doesn't looks to work well.
-The fuel, battery and oil pressure gauges are moving when I put the turn signals on.
-The water tempetature gauge doesn't work at all, it's always on the max temp.
-Service Engine Soon lamp isn't working at all, no checking when I put the contact on.
-When I put the headlights on, the speedo and the tachometer are getting completely wrong and all the lights are turning off inside of the car.
-Contrariwise, the speedometer and tachometer are perfectly working without the headlight on. The seatbelts, security and brake lights are working good too.

So...I've got all these problems to solve but I absolutely don't know what to do. To fix all that, I have:

-My Haynes book.

But I don't have:

-The factory cluster as a model to see which cables goes on which lamps and/or gauges.
-I have the wiring and plugs that goes with the OEM cluster I bought but I don't know which year was the Camaro which the cluster's coming from.
-I don't know which color cable goes to which gauge or lamp from the factory 1989 wiring harness.

So, as you can see I'm totally lost with that problem and I just don't know how to deal with that at all.
Can you please tell me how to fix that? Your opinion on that.
Can someone scan or tell me where to find the wiring diagrams? I need the 1989 cluster's one and I don't know for the cluster...1985 maybe...don't know if the colors of the cables are the same every years?

Or, if someone here has for sale one 240KPH IROC complete cluster, please tell me, I'm extremely interested. Tell me your price and shipping coststo Switzerland. Paypal payment, no bullshitting, no stupid questions. I just need to get that Camaro on the road this summer, mainly for my father, I know he's quite upset with that cluster problems.

I really hope someone could help me here. I tried everything here in Switzerland, french forums, garages and everything but nobody could help me out.
I really don't know what to do anymore and I can't stand watching that good looking Camaro staying in the garage...

I hope my English is good enough for you guys to understand what I'm talking about, don't hesitate to ask if anything's not clearly explained.

Thanks a lot by advance, have a good day and greetings from Switzerland,

Lionel.

comet72

Nobody can help me out?
Or did I make something wrong? Is that an introducing section that I haven't seen?

Sorry to bother you with that but I really need your knowledge.

Arvizu9618

iTrader: (1)

Greetings from Arizona!

Take it apart again and check to see that your connectors are right side up, especially the Clear one or in your case the Brown one.

RT

comet72

Hey!

for your answer!

Thanks for your advice, I'm sure that the connectors are on the right side up, no doubt on that.
I think the problem is that the connectors aren't plugged in the same order in the big plastic plugs because of the cluster's and car's years that aren't matching together. I think the wiring must be different between production years and the connectors are inverted, for me it sounds like the most probable cause about the problem I have.

Now my problem is to know which connectors and which colours of cables goes to which accessorry (battery gauge, temp gauge, idiot lights by example) from the original 1989 IROC V8 wiring diagram.

Does anybody know if the wiring diagrams exists for that model-year and where can I find them?
Do you think it's possible to invert connectors to put them back in the right order on the plugs and then have a perfectly-working gauge cluster or would it be better to find an another gauge cluster, a 240KPH one like the factory one was?

My Camaro went out of the assembly line with a 240KPH gauge cluster...I think it's a Canadian version because of that KPH cluster. But does anybody know if the wiring diagrams for the 145MPH and 240KPH gauges were the same?

What a mess...
Anyway, thanks a lot for helping me.

JamesC

iTrader: (5)

Hey, comet72, welcome to TGO.

First, since the speedo is cable driven, the headlights should have no effect on it.

If you swap in an 82-84 cluster, there may be some electrical gremlins.

85-89 V8 clusters, regardless of MPH/KPH, should be a direct swap into your car. I'd make sure the new cluster was seated properly and secured in place with the two 10 mm screws at the bottom of the cluster. If that doesn't work, you might consider the wiring behind the dash that you "fixed."

Oh, and it is possible that the ebay cluster is simply bad.

The following link may prove useful at some point:

https://www.thirdgen.org/forums/faq-...-fix-pics.html

JamesC

comet72

Thanks for your answer.

The ebay cluster was working, I'm sure of it.
About the dash wiring, the only thing I did on it was to pull out the connectors (one by one, no inversion possible) off the facory plastic plugs that were completely broken and put them into the new plugs I received with the ebay cluster. Luckilly there were no damages on the connectors.

And yes, the headlights problem is real...and that makes me think of the connectors must be reversed between the car and ebay cluster wiring...like if some on the idiot lights were plugged on the gauges or other inversions like that.
As when I put the side turn signals on, the battery, oil and water pressure gauges are all flashing the same time as the turn signal green lights!

The 10mm screws are right screwed and the cluster is firmly clipped and screwed onto the dash, it can't move at all.

Thanks a lot for the infos. I'm gonna check if the cluster is a right 85-89 one. Is there any notable difference between 82-84 and 85-89 145MPH clusters? Does the serial number indicates the cluster's production year?
I'm also still searching for the 1989 dash wiring diagram.

Has someone other ideas to help me?

JamesC

iTrader: (5)

The 82-84 clusters are noticeably different as they have the double-pointer speedos. There is no difference between 85-89 clusters (they're plug and play), though the 145 didn't appear until 86, IIRC.

That the serial number would indicate year is unlikely.

JamesC

comet72

Ok, thanks. I saw the link you posted in your last reply.

My cluster's a 85-89 one, 145MPH with single pointer speedo.
So I belive that my only chance to get it fixed is now to find the 1989 dash wiring diagram...definitely the problem seems to be the wires that must be reversed.

Sounds bad...I'm trying to imagine the dozens of hours I'm gonna pass under the dash to find where the cables go. Sh*t happens.
Any other ideas?

canadian

If you want a 240kph speedo I've got one, got the whole cluster too. From an 87 IROC.

comet72

Yeah, I'm highly interested. I need the whole cluster. Is it in good working condition?
Can you please PM me your price for it and also the price for the shipping charges to Switzerland, 1004 postal code?

Many thanks for your help!

comet72

Guys,

After hard searching on the net I found that diagram:



It looks exactly like the diagram I need to pin my connectors back in the right order, but I just have one question. As you can see on these pictures I took yesterday, on my Camaro are:

-Eleven connectors on the passenger's side plug:



And twelve connectors on the driver's side plug:



So that's just exactly the opposite of what's written on the diagram up here.

I don't understand anything about this wiring anymore...I'm starting to think that they've must be drunk on the assembly line...

8t2 z-chev

1990-'92 clusters are different with different plugs and
wiring.Sounds like a grounding problem is causing the
trouble with replacement cluster-check those real close.
Sometimes the speedo or tach will have a date stamp or
a date sticker on the back side of the face.

rough

I have a similar problem as well bookmarking

comet72

Ok, thanks a lot for these important infos, you're really helping me a lot.
A finally found the right wiring diagram I think:



1989 Camaro dash wiring, out the Shop Manual.
But the number of the pins on the diagram and on the car aren't matching. On the car's wiring I have 11 pins on the A connector and there must be twelve pins if I belive what's written on the diagram.
I've got no pin that goes on the 7th position of the plug.

However, the number of pins looks like matching for the B connector if I compare between the car and the diagram.

Do you think changing my ebay speedo for another can solve the problem? I'm gonna check the grounding connectors ASAP, thanks.

Sorry, it sucks. Hope I'll find the answer to this problem, I'll keep you informed if I can get if fixed.

K4KAK

GROUND..... Hello, I have the same issue and from every thing i can find out, its a bad ground. now the bad part, I dont know where it may be.... different ones have created new grounds for there dash and have had good luck with it.

comet72

Hey!

Sorry about the answeing delays but I got tons of work these days. Anyway thanks for your help K4KAK!!!

Just wanna let you know that the problem's still isn't fixed.
I tried to change grounds, create new ones, make reversals in the cluster's wiring after looking at the wiring diagrams but nothing worked.

I thought something's wrong with the cluster's printed circuit that is a little damaged in the left corner so Canadian from this forum offered me one another complete 240KPH instrument cluster that's about to arrive in Switzerland after a few impredictable facts (postal services problems).
Hope I'll can fix that dash problem with the new cluster, but I'm quite sure it's gonna work. Actually the first cluster that I bought on E-Bay's installed in the car but they're lots of wiring problems so only the speedo, tacho, SES and brake idiot lights and fuel gauge are working.

I found on last week the last body parts that I was searching for...so the Camaro's almost ready to get back on the roads! Wait and see.

Thanks again for your help.