gauges stopped working, scangauge reading 35 mph at stop.

[shenrie]

not quite sure what's going on. my gauges stopped working, but all other lights seem to still work. then i notice when sitting at a standstill that the scangauge is reading 35 mph. truck runs fine, but noticed at times that the tranny wasn't engaging for a few seconds from a stop. rpms would climb, but didn't go anywhere. also noticed some weird shifting a few times, but rig was still cold and its done weird stuff off and on before the truck is at normal operating temps (115-130eot) before. nothing else seems amiss, other than i did notice my high idle not engaging once. hvac, radio, and all cluster idiot and illumination lights work, wait to start etc.

did some searching and found similar issues with fseries. one was vss related, other ends up being a bad connection with the wires from the od button getting worn at base of column and shorting. followed mine and can see no issues to where it ties in with rest of harness away from moving parts.

i decided to swap out the vss since they were in stock and only 20 bucks a mile up the street. no change. but something caught my eye with the little removable gear. it looked a little worn on the very bottom. not on the gear part where it's driven, but there's an extended nub underneith, like possibly a locating pin maybe?? shoulda got a pic....dumb

scangauge seems to be accurate other than i have seen a few different mph readings at a standstill. otherwise all readings are normal.

cluster is from a 99 truck and thought maybe one of my connections came loose. so took it apart with key on so if anything changed while i was removing cluster it would be obvious. nothing changed. all connections were still in place and no chaffed wires could be located. one thing that i did notice was a small hum coming from the cluster. when the middle (white) plug was unplugged, hum stopped.

one of the times i noticed the gauges not working, i smacked the dash for the hell of it and they started working again. hesitation off the line stopped completely and didn't notice any irregular shifts. lasted a few short trips, now im back to no gauges and slow starts. starting to lean towards a bad cluster. anyone have any other suggestions based on my symptoms? tia!

[JWA]

Originally Posted by shenrie

cluster is from a 99 truck and thought maybe one of my connections came loose. so took it apart with key on so if anything changed while i was removing cluster it would be obvious. nothing changed. all connections were still in place and no chaffed wires could be located. one thing that i did notice was a small hum coming from the cluster. when the middle (white) plug was unplugged, hum stopped.

I'm also running a cluster from an F-Series---the version up to 2001 in fact. Initially after installation it worked fine then a few weeks later began intermittent failure, acting as though it was cycling through the key-on prove out test. Pushing on the face restored operation for a bit longer, the condition repeating from time to time.

Within the past two weeks all gauges stopped working including the speedo and odo too----idiot lights working on first key on. Luckily I had another same type/year cluster--swapping it cured the problem. Sounds like your situation is just like me especially because the drive train still functions normally.

Very possibly the entire cluster has failed----I'm finding them on eBay in various conditions for as low as $60 to over $350 (NOS).

Hope its nothing more than a bad cluster.