This is going to be a little long winded, but here goes. Couple weeks ago, I was driving along when the chime went off (like the low fuel light went on) in my 05 XLT Scab 5.4L. I had just filled up with fuel earlier in the day, so I knew it wasn't that I was low on fuel. I looked down at my gauges, and every single light on the dash had come on, and the speedo, tach, fuel guage, and temperature guage were all not working, but the oil pressure guage and voltage meter were still working fine. The temp/compass/odometer had also gone out. It was like this for maybe a minute, then the chime went off again and everything went back to normal except for the digital temp/compass/odometer, which was still not working. I pulled a bunch of fuses, none of which were blown, and replaced them. This made the digital guage come back on. Everything was fine for about two weeks, then it did it all over again. This may sound stupid, (and I don't see the connection between the two) but I swear my air conditioning quit working during this "outage". The fan was still blowing, but it stopped blowing cold air. I didn't notice it the first time because I didn't have the a/c on. Now, the digital guage won't come back on. Last night, it did it all again. Obviously I have some sort of circuitry problem, but was just looking for a little advice before I start troubleshooting. Anybody else have this happen? There's so many things going on here that this may be a real bear to figure out. I'm going to give it a go this weekend. Thanks in advance.

 

Check your main BUS fuses under the hood. If the AC kicked off, that may mean that the AC clutch was not receiving power anymore, even though the AC relay may be fine. One of those BUS fuses can really send your truck into shock (no pun intended) and act very weird.

 

Gave it a good look this weekend and no progress was made. Today when I was coming home from work, the guages would cycle on and off along with the dash lights. It is not consistent at all as far as when it happens and which lights come on/guages go off, etc. Anybody else had this happen?

 

I have read on here that water can work it's way up into the fuse panel and start causing all kinds of problems. If you want to do it yourself you will need to pull the whole fuse panel out and look behind it for corosion. Or take it in if it's stlll under warranty.

 

Had a similiar problem last winter, the door ajar light, and sensor kept goingoff,along with the guages becomming very erratic,not reading correctly and swinging back and forth. Quick trip to the dealer and 600 dollars later,,, it was determined that the instrument cluster board was cracked,mind you the vehicle has 66,000 miles on it all highway ,no rough driving .Dealer stated that this is a common occurance and Ford knows about it. Hope this sheds some light on the problem.

 

My guages read correctly when they work, but they cycle from working to not working at all. Sounds pretty similar though. I'm going into the dealer this afternoon to see what they know (not much I'm sure). It's extremely annoying and I need to get it fixed as soon as possible. BTW, my truck only has 32,000 miles on it with very minimal off roading. Just checking farm fields and getting to my favorite hunting spots is about the extent of it.