My truck is going crazy, my gauges all zero out(except my fuel Guage and oil pressure gauges), all the lights on left side of cluster erratically come on and stay on.. sometimes everything goes back to normal, but not for long... when this happens which is mo
St of the time I'm driving my air conditioner doesn't work when this is happening..

I first took my truck to O'Reilly who said it was my battery, but bought a new battery only to have the same problem...

I was planning on finding a used instrument cluster, but I wanted to check here to see if it maybe some other problem first.

Any thoughts??

Thanks,

Charles

 

What I found with mine, Chuck, is solder joints on the cluster circuit board.
I disassembled the cluster a resoldered a dozen or so solder joints.
My dome lights were coming on and off at random and over bumps and even when parked.It would kill the battery while setting (parked).
Also the infamous red brake warning light did the same thing,only doesn't kill the battery.
Also the light behind the odometer was out.I fixed it ALL.
Don't get a new cluster as the antitheft and door lock remote function is located in the cluster.
I found a few Pictures of some of the solder joints affected on the circuitboard.I just don't remember where I got them.
All in all, your problem sounds like a bad solder joint on the board.Very common ,I find ,On many fords , as I have repaired a bunch of them on various models.

 

any chance you might locate those pics of which solder joints cause issues? I too have the interior lights coming on randomly...

 

This here thread shows some repairs

https://www.ford-trucks.com/forums/1...lem-fixed.html

Now. What the thread is showing is how t check for a bad solder joint.

However ,it is showing what the guy did for his speedo backlighting.

The place you want to look is where the vehicle harness plugs into the back of the cluster. That is where the dome light control comes in at, and where the break in circuit usually occurs, caused by a solder joint cracking.

Grab a wiring diagram and look for the pin on the cluster that is connected to the dome lights.

I would just look all of them over and any one of them that looks sketchy----reheat them, add a touch of solder if needed.

Use a low wattage soldering pencil.Like 23 watt. Get some real small flux core solder(rosin for electronics) and go to work.

Best of luck.

 

Thanks very much..appreciate the info.