ratedZ

Hey guys, I think I've acquired some new grey hair these past two days when I decided to swap out my 83 280zxt's digital dash to the 79 analog unit. Here's an outline of my problems.

A.) Turbo gauge does not work
B.) Speedo jumps especially while decelerating
C.) Talking lady has been silenced
D.) Cruise control does not work

I'm using a harness off of an 81 non-turbo (which I know now is a big mistake!)

Please bare with me as this is somewhat hard to explain...

A.) Ok to explain my findings with this problem....on the three gauge cluster for the turbo model, there are two wires that comes out of the unit that is separate from the wire harness...the colors are black and blue with a white stripe (the blue/white wire has a canister looking thing attached to it). These wires are connected directly to the turbo gauge. So thinking I could somehow run these wires to the 81 harness I joined the black wire (I think it's the ground) to a cluster of black wires in the harness...then I unraveled the blue/white stripe wire from the 83 harness and I connected it to the 81 harness (I inserted the pin to the same hole location on the 83...the 81 harness did not have a wire there so I inserted it to the empty hole which is a mirror of the 83 harness)(confused yet?...believe me I am) So I fire it up...the needle did move but it just pegged out to the right and didn't move as I revved the engine...normally the needle should be in the middle. So ok, I started messing with those two wires and I noticed that when I unplugged the black wire and vise versa the needle would go back to the left and then it would jump to the right when I re-plugged it. Grey hair number one has popped out at this point. Another idea comes to mind and I figured that I should also put the actual harness that is connected to the cluster pins to see if the wires are identical...they are but sure enough one was missing from each harnesses. Soooo...I take the missing wire from pin to pin and inserted it to the 81 harness...now it should work right? nope...so just for sh*ts and giggles I disconnected the harness but left the black and blue/white wire connected....the other gauges didn't work as suspected but the turbo gauge was still pegged to the right...what the heck is going on.

B.) The speedo works and I got the car going 110mph...the only problem is the needle jumps up and down especially during deceleration...but I think I know what the problem is with this one. When I swapped out the speedo cable I crossed threaded a camp that holds the cable to the frame and I was only able to secure the cable with one clamp. I think that the cable is not stable because of the missing clamp making it jump up and down. Correct me if I'm wrong on this one.

C.) Now for the talking lady...I also think I know what's wrong with this one. When I had the dash out I decided to take out the center speaker as it's blown...unfortunately I don't have the money to replace them yet so I left the speaker on the passenger side. Is that the problem? I'm iffy as I thought that the talking lady spoke on both the front speakers...but if she only speaks on the center speaker then my problem on this is solved. I'll just reconnect the speaker. Correct me here if I'm wrong also. PS. I can here here faint voice coming out of the box in the spare tire area but that's it so it does work.

D.) Here...I toss my hands in the air because I have no clue what's going on. The light "ON" does come on when I press the switch located on the dash but it doesn't engage when I press the switches on the turn signal arm (decelerate, accelerate buttons etc.) Well, as you can see I have bugs to work out and I really need your help guys as I'm now out of ideas. I can't buy a turbo harness as they are almost impossible to find and I'm out o cash (figures). So I'm stuck trying to make things work with a non turbo harness if I want to be able to drive my car. Answer what you guys can...at this point anything will help. Thanks.

ratedZ
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