Ok guys heres the scoop, original gauges from 88 and only two of them ended up wrking. needle fell off the speedo, oil never wrked, temp never wrked, and my tach jus recently went cause the needle decided to be pinned to 7 thousand so long story short only gas and volts worked. so then i orded autometer gauges, speedo, tach, gas and volts (i have the temp and oil on a pod on the a-pillar). now i have one of those haynes manual but im kinda gettin confused cause im seeing more wires in my dash than their showing me in the diagrams in the manual. i was wondering if someone can gimme some feed back or how they ran their wires or what color wires are what. thanks for any help guys i really appriciate it

 

Yeah, this is hard. I've done it twice now. In order to find what pins in the factory connectors did what, I traced its path along the plastic backing on the cluster to see what it went to. First find the power leads. They will go to all gauges and the lights. Then find the grounds. Then the other odd wires that go to each gauge are the ones with the signal. You can send that to your new Autometers if you are using electric ones... assuming the senders will send the signal they need.

I don't know if other clusters are made this way, but it's really an amazing design. I can see how it's cheap to make and idiot proof to install- which is how the whole car is made really.

Good luck!

 

Thanks for the feed back. So the signals in the connectors i can use that for the main power lead for each electric gauge? Because they're all electric exept the speedo. I know i need a power and ground for each gauges light, then a key on 12 volt sourse, a main ground and then a main power wire (as far as i know). The you have two connectors that wen into the stock cluster, one left and one right. Thats what confuses me

 

first of all create a harness that ties all your lights grounds and powers together so that you have single ground 12v and light 12 connections for all your guages,

then start with the following, the guy said this was an 87 camaro, and it all wound up being correct in my 84 firebird, no idea if it will be the same for you but i suspect it will, i mean every car has all these functions, but none the less get a voltmeter or test light or both and check before you snip


12v from Instrument Panel (Gauges) fuse will be Pink with a Black tracer wire... there are a few of them, but you only need one.

12v from Instrument panel (Lamps) fuse will be solid Grey... there also a few of these, you only need one.

The brake warning indicator light should be Tan with a White tracer.

Fuel level gauge = solid Pink

High beam indicator light = solid light Green

Left signal indicator light = solid light Blue

Right signal indicator light = solid dark Blue

that being said,

the e brake warning light is a sort of backwards, the tan white traced wire that comes to the dash from the ebrake mechanism/switch, is actually the ground side. so if you hook the + side of the bulb to your 12v ignition source with the guages, and the ground side to that wire. when you pull the ebrake it closes the ground side and lights the bulb.

 

This should at least give you the wire that goes to the sender. If for some reason the sender sends the wrong range to the new gauge, then you can get a new sender and plug it into the stock wire. But I think they are all the same. I made sure to get a fuel gauge that accepts the standard GM range and it worked great.

And I just remembered: Be sure to find the correct power lead for the lights. It will allow you to dim the new gauges like everything else.

The right and left clusters have some redundant things like hot, ground and lights, but each has specific things too. I think most of the ones you want are on the left one though.

I also had to do a lot of hacking and cutting to get the bigger gauges to fit back in there. Originally I completely ditched the stock white gauge box, but for my latest version I retain it so I can put lights in the little tunnels and still see the turn signals, idiot lights, etc... It seems more solid that way too.

The best thing to do is get a good game plan with your wiring, try to keep it all neat and contained, and make for just a few easy connections. You'll be trying to wrestle the new cluster in place, so making all the wires neat and bundled together really helps.

 

I used a test light to make sure I had the right lead for simple stuff like the high beams, turn signals, etc...

 

Thanks for some more feed back guys. I took a test light to the wires today to see which wire was what and i did find the solid pink for fuel with its ground, found a couple pink/black wires for key on power, and i did find the light switch wires for the bulbs. im gonna see if those wires will match up to my signals, high beams and so forth. Thanks again guys, ill keep ya updated

 

Ok lastest and greatest, found all the light switch wires. they're all grey, there were three of them which is perfect for what i need. i ran all my grounds to the same spot and found all the wires i needed, tach is white, fuel was the soild pink and volts is jus a simple pink/black wire which is key on 12v. for tomorrow im gonna make the metal gauges housing and mount the gauges up. then im gonna run the rest of the wires and prey to god they all work on start up.

 

Latest and greatst on the gauges. got all of them wired and lighting up and working. work like a charm and are acurate. Thanks for all the info and advice, it helped

 

glad it worked out