*I reposted here because I just wasn't getting any response anywhere else.

Ok, please see if you can diagnos this very strange gauge/light problem I have or tell me where to start looking.

Here's what happens:

Headlights turned OFF, everything works fine, all guages are cool.

Turn the headlights ON, and it gets all weird. When I pull the headlight switch on, the right 3 gauges go dead: tach, battery, and oil pressure (right? ...anyway, the 3 right most ones). The speedo and others on left side work fine.

Also, along with the gauges going dead, the dash light on the right side (behind the dead gauges) goes out as well as another dash light over by the AC/Heater controls. But the light behind the remaining working gauges is normal.

There's more. When I switch on a turn signal, the 3 dead gauges will flutter in sync with the turn signal (they will kinda jump up a centimeter or so in conjunction with the turn signal blinking)

And lastly. If I rotate the headlight *** (the dash light dimmer) while the lights are on and the gauges therefore dead, the lights will go in and out - flash on/off, on/off , etc. - as I rotate through the range of motion/dimness. And of course the gauges jump alive while this happens everythime the lights go out and then are dead again as soon as I turn the *** a little further and the lights come back on.

Any ideas on what would cause this and how I can fix it, its quite annoying and looks damn ridiculous?

I am not an electronics person and so don't know how I would fix it unless I got my Dad's help who is an electronics whiz. I wouldnt mind taking it to someone and paying them to fix it for me if I knew it would be a modest fee, but I am afraid they either will not be able to figure it out and/or will charge me a large amount of cash due to the time.


Any ideas/help?

Thanks guys.

 

Ok, I finally got the whole gauge mount out and the gauges off.

Someone else said it might be a break in the circuit board behind the gauges, so I dug all that out.

However, now how the heck do I know whats wrong? I don't really know what I'm doing here.... I got everthing out but I don't know what I am looking for and if I find it, how to fix it.

Any ideas or help would be great, now that I have a car with nothin in the dash...

Thanks.