gauges gone wild

Lucky Jeff

Lucky Jeff

Stock Sucks
Joined
Apr 3, 2007
Messages
5,784
I finally have my truck back on the road after 10 months (I think that's a record for a head gasket). After the truck was all back together. I went to fire up the truck and my gauges don't work, first trip out I pulled the park brake out to leave. Gauges went nuts. Up down up down up down constantly. Push in the park brake just one click and they flatline again.. Where in the world could I have screwed that up?
 
Sounds like you have a screwed up ground.
 
Yep, sounds like a ground, either that or if you pulled your power from the fuse box on the side of the dash, your wire could be caught in your park brake??

Lavon
 
I've heard a lot of people talk about the ground but it just doesn't make sense.. the only grounds I disconnected were the ones on the batteries.. Are there others I am missing?
 
Jeff, you pulled the parking brake and your gages went haywire? hmmmm, like LAmiller said check the wires around your foot lever.....
 
There is a ground switch on the parking brake mechanism. It controls the idiot light on the dash (and probably other things that I don't know about).
 
alright I'll check the wires I kick around with my feet.. Thanks guys, I'll let ya know :Cheer:
 
turns out the park brake isn't the only thing that trips it.. I put my truck in 4wd today and the gauges stay flatlines there too, as soon as I put it back into 2wd, gauges go nuts. The idiot light never came on in the dash because I don't have the front driveline in right now (I needed 2wd low). Only thing I don't have plugged in is the pigtail for the backup lights. but I don't see how that could have anything to do with any of it.
 
Did you hook the all ground wires back to the head? Sounds like everything is looking for a ground and different things you do in the cab will offer one but sooner or later something is gonna burn up some wires!!!
 
Most likely a ground. I had a car in my shop (used to be an automotive electrical specialist) everytime you turned on the headlights the tach would stop and the right blinker indicator would come on. I finally traced it to a faulty ground wire under the dash that had pulled apart over time. I'm sure yours is somethign similiar, unfortunately they can be a real bear to track down at times.

George
 
First, take a jumper wire from the battery negative post and try it on several spots on the body under the dash.
 
I went over to a friends house today to swap computers to see if I toasted any grounds in there. No luck, we tried a few other things and came up empty handed. Then right before I left he decided he wanted to swap clusters. So we did and everything worked just like it should :bang .. So I took mine apart and found one section on the board that had overheated and made a small split.. Now THAT is a fix I can deal with :rockwoot: . Now I just need to go find a new cluster :pop:
 
WOW.....now thats something that would drive you nuts looking for that problem......glad to hear you got it fixed!!
 
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