Custom instrument cluster???

[chris_wei17]

seems to be a never ending battle trying to figure out if its the almost 20 yr old electronics or something else making the gauges work as poorly as they do. I was thinking about just getting all aftermarket ones and wiring them up into some sort of mount. That thought took me back to the time I was trying to be responsible and have a working speedometer and bought a cluster out of a 97 diesel, I have a 94, I figured it was close enough. Turns out theres not a battery light on that one, or the circuit is different? either way the end result is that the voltage regulator never does its thing and your batteries don't charge. anyone have any insight as to how to keep something similar from happening? or even better a diagram of the voodoo magic flexible wire thing on the back of the cluster?

 

[bockhold]

what are you going to do with the cluster then?

 

[chris_wei17]

I put the old one back in and just swapped the speedo part in from the new one. Atleast I know how fast I'm going except now the truck thinks it has 350,*** some miles on it. But now I still have a bunch of useless gauges up there

 

[GOOSE]

The gauge space is a half wasted area. I would love to rip it out and put custom gauges in. This is the type of project that you need a junk vehicle to mock it up in. It is rather difficult to just start hacking at your daily driver not knowing for certain how you are going to get to the end product.