gages not working
gages not working
Moderator
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 56,846
Likes: 2,681
From: Virginia
Check all the fuses first.
Then, let's pick the water temperature gauge, since it's easiest.
Go out under the hood and on top of the engine look around for a sensor with a single red with white stripe wire going to it. It should be going into a water passage.
Take this wire off, and then turn the key on without starting the truck. Note the gauge reading. Then take the wire you took off and somehow ground it to a clean place on the engine. Watch the gauge. If the gauge swings full scale opposite from when you had the wire off, then the wiring and guage are ok, and there is something wrong with the sensor. You didn't say, but sometimes the gauges fail individually over time, and people usually don't notice it till the fuel gauge fails. If we get one gauge to work, then we can assume the cluster is ok.
If the guage does not respond at all, then I would go ahead and pull the cluster, and check/clean all the plugs and wiring. Unplug and plug back in the connector. I would say to check the voltage regulator that feeds all the gauges, but I am not sure your truck has one, since the later models didn't. If it did have one it would be a small metal box mounted to the circuit board on the instrument cluster.
Then, let's pick the water temperature gauge, since it's easiest.
Go out under the hood and on top of the engine look around for a sensor with a single red with white stripe wire going to it. It should be going into a water passage.
Take this wire off, and then turn the key on without starting the truck. Note the gauge reading. Then take the wire you took off and somehow ground it to a clean place on the engine. Watch the gauge. If the gauge swings full scale opposite from when you had the wire off, then the wiring and guage are ok, and there is something wrong with the sensor. You didn't say, but sometimes the gauges fail individually over time, and people usually don't notice it till the fuel gauge fails. If we get one gauge to work, then we can assume the cluster is ok.
If the guage does not respond at all, then I would go ahead and pull the cluster, and check/clean all the plugs and wiring. Unplug and plug back in the connector. I would say to check the voltage regulator that feeds all the gauges, but I am not sure your truck has one, since the later models didn't. If it did have one it would be a small metal box mounted to the circuit board on the instrument cluster.