I made another post about my cluster needing to be replaced, and I confirmed it today because if I beat on the dash it starts working for a bit.
My question is, my oil gauge has always worked. Today it's not and the oil light is on. Am i correct in thinking that if I truly lose oil pressure it'll quit running before it damages anything? It's never had oil pressure issues, so I'm not concerned about much, but oil, temp, and volt are 3 gauges I don't like being without.

I will be parking her until i get a cluster once I get home, but I'm 40 minutes away, and i really like this truck and dont want to kill it!

 

You're good. No oil from LPOP to feed the HPOP means no oil to fire injectors pretty much immediately.

Getting yours rebuilt or boneyard or... ? Edit: ah found other thread, rebuild. Sounds like a good call to me.

 

I'm getting a dorman replacement. 230 bucks all new electronics. I don't want something else that might be at the end of its life span

 

Give this a shot before you order a new cluster.

Remove the existing cluster and where the ribbon cables are pushed into the cluster, put a piece of trimmed note card in there under the pins of the cluster to create more of a contact. In addition, check the plug for issues and you can also try and bend up the flexible circuit board where the contacts are at.

I had to do something similar to this on my 2002 Mercury Sable with 248,000 miles on it in order to get the instrument cluster to work right. You have nothing to lose really by trying.

This is a video someone did briefly explaining it a bit.

 

If you rap on the dash and it comes to life and you say your parking it until your new arrives...........Pull the cluster, clean it with electronics cleaner spray and wipe down. Remove all bulbs and just wipe the cleaner on they're pedestals. Check your dash ground to make sure it's clean and rust free.

If you can temp fix it with a hand blow, your new unit may suffer the same characteristic and nothing was wrong with it. I believe from your posts that your suffering a vital connection, aka ground.

Denny (you have nothing to lose because your pulling it anyway, might as well try before you buy)

 

Sometimes using a pencil eraser on the connections on the ribbon cable is all that's necessary.

Feel free to completely replace it all if you've got the bucks to not first attempt to fix it yourself.

Pop

 

I'll pull it again and see if I can find something. It needs a new cluster though...there is something rattling around inside this one. You can hear it when you tilt it. Not sure what it is but due to the fact it isn't working, it's gotta be something relatively important. I can't even get it to work by hitting it now this is after running for about 30 minutes. It's running in this picture. Stuck by a train

 

The piece rattling around inside there is probably the black cover for the RPM needle. With as many of these trucks that were produced...it should be fairly easy to source a good used replacement in your area. Just a thought..

 

that black piece is sitting in my center console. I broke it off when I had the gauges apart. I dropped the needle

 

I would like to buy your old cluster, or at least a piece of it. I need the gauge face ( the black part) with all the silk screening words/numbers on it. Specifically, I want to cut out the portions on the right side where the "Wait to Start" "Brake" and other lights show through.

 

if I end up getting a used one then I'd be more than happy to send you mine. If I buy a reman one, I'll have to turn in the old one as there is a $300 core charge

 

I ordered my new cluster today. $199 through AutoZone for a remanufactured cluster. Should be about a week for delivery and then we'll be back in business!