Mary'sMyBaby

I purchased an 86 Sport Camaro a few months back and the cluster has always had a short in it. When the headlights are on, and the backlights on the gauges come on, the gauges stop working. I'm assuming that there is a short somewhere in the wiring. What I'm trying to find out is, will changing the cluster get rid of this problem? Or is the culprit outside of the cluster wiring? Also, when the right turn signal is on, the gauges "tick" with the blinker. And when the backlights are on, so is the right turn signal light on the dash. And now, the other day, my "choke" light came on (i do not have electric choke hooked up to my carb atm) and it seems to be shorting out the whole cluster. Now none of the gauges work. It would be good to have my fuel gauge and speedo working while I'm driving....any help at all is appreciated.

Scorpner

iTrader: (4)

All of the things going on does sound really strange and sometimes that relates to a ground issue. There are headlight ground wires up by the battery that you could check fairly easily. The headlights carry a lot of amps which could possibly pull voltage from the cluster. Have you checked the voltage the car is running at when this occurs?

I would probably pull the cluster and check the circuit panel on the back before buying another one. The tabs on the cluster can get damaged and the circuit panel can peel apart and/or crack in places. Those are easily checked visually. I have a feeling that it's not the cluster though.

It's more of a matter of isolating the problem than buying and replacing parts. You can do that too, but if it's an issue in one of the harnesses or a connector then you'll be replacing parts for no reason.

For reference, this is what the back of one looks like.

Mary'sMyBaby

Thank you. No, I have not checked the voltage of the car while its doing this. I'll look into that tomorrow. What should I be checking for the voltage? and I'll also take a look at the back of the cluster and see if anything looks damaged.