No dash lights/alt gauge

pnyklr

Registered User
Leaving my girlfriends house I had
no dash lights
no PRNDL indicator lights
no lights on the heater (just the temp)
and also my alt gauge is buried all the way to the left

my cig lighter works
radio works
heat & a/c work
all the other gauges work
headlights taillights marker turn signals taillights @ led's all work

any ideas ??

I drove home from PA with no problem I also disconnected the battery to see if the alt was functioning and it was

I'm stumped its dark and I'm tired so I'm not going to mess with it tonight

I have another headlight switch and instrument cluster which I can use if anyone thinks either of these are the problem

Thanks in advance and have a great holiday everyone
 
My bet is ignition switch... been there with the same type of conditions...

first check the cluster fuse, it powers most if not all you are describing..

- Keith
 
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I changed the fuse now the parking light fuse keeps going out as well only the headlights come on now nothing else ~~~ !!!!
 
Leaving my girlfriends house I had
no dash lights
no PRNDL indicator lights
no lights on the heater (just the temp)
and also my alt gauge is buried all the way to the left

my cig lighter works
radio works
heat & a/c work
all the other gauges work
headlights taillights marker turn signals taillights @ led's all work

any ideas ??

I drove home from PA with no problem I also disconnected the battery to see if the alt was functioning and it was

I'm stumped its dark and I'm tired so I'm not going to mess with it tonight

I have another headlight switch and instrument cluster which I can use if anyone thinks either of these are the problem

Thanks in advance and have a great holiday everyone

well first of off your lucky you didnt burn up your ecm by pulling the battery cable will the car is running , because it is a big power blast of volts that the ecm might not beable to handle sorry to down you but this might say your from a new ecm easyest way to test it is take it off go down to autozone and have then test it or you might beable to use a muitimeter idk but pulling the battery cable with the car running is a bad idea.
 
it was at 9 pm at night in the country in pennsylvania in the only gas station open wasnt much of a choice as I was about to take a two hour ride home

thanks for the advice though
 
im going to try to head to autozone after work or advance tomorrow (during work) its just a matter of how long I want to wait to get it fixed

Im leaning toward advance since they have a 1 yr warranty on the switch
 
I ordered a new switch from advance I hope thats the problem it still doesnt explain why the alt gauge is buried to the left
 
There was a recent post where a bad ignition switch was causing a battery to go dead overnight. You might have some kind of a voltage drain going on that would account for the heavy charging. Would suggest you charge the battery up since our alternator is not designed to charge a dead battery and will burn it up.

Your switch can be permanently fixed with a few wire-ties. Bad design of switch allows it to separate.
 
the thing is the battery isnt drained at all its like the switch isnt getting a signal (if thats possible)
 
might want to check all your wiring in the dash, my car had burnt up the wiring that runs the headlights , think its because the headlights with the fog lamps on is to much of a draw on the wiring . might be your prob just diff switch.;)
 
i pulled out the cluster all the wires are good and the harnesses are not melted

i even swapped out my cluster for another same problem
 
I put in the MFS myself I changed a few fuses and the headlight switch

I now have marker lights taillights and the alternator gauge works

BUT I still have no cluster lights and it keeps blowing out the fuse
 
PROBLEM SOLVED the yellow wire from the radio harness was disconnected
came loose from the connector some how

I'm going to drive it around a little just to double check
 
I know this is a little late, but think about when you pull the battery wires.... You have all this power flowing, now it can't ground anywhere. You can let the magic smoke out of the computer that way.

If the ignition switch was bad you wouldn't get heater, radio, brakes, etc... working. Mine failed two weeks ago, I still had dash lights and stuff but the accessories would go off when I hit a bump.
 
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