65 Barracuda gauges

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piperdrums

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I have a 65 Barracuda and have only owned it for about 1 month. engine runs great finally, but the only thing that works on my dash is the speedometer. No dash lights work and the charging gauge, temp gauge and fuel gauge does not work. I did check the fuses and non looked blown. Help...
 
piperdrums said:
I have a 65 Barracuda and have only owned it for about 1 month. engine runs great finally, but the only thing that works on my dash is the speedometer. No dash lights work and the charging gauge, temp gauge and fuel gauge does not work. I did check the fuses and non looked blown. Help...
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This link will take you to free factory service manuals and there is one for a 65.
Lots of troubleshooting info on gauge clusters in there.

http://www.mymopar.com/index.php?pid=109

I have two 65 clusters I just pulled if you need one.
 
I can tell you mine is not much different as far as the gauges and lights on the inside go. I had a 66 barracuda and it to was hopeless on interior lights gauges and such. I went for complete rewiring with a kit. I know there are a couple out there that come with complete wires and harness so all you do is install it and hook it to everything in the car. It is not that hard as these early cars have bot much in them as far as electrical. Front lights, rear lights, interior and dash panel not much else. One is from Painless wiring and it is not mopar perfect so you must cut the ends off and make them fit your car I did it for my 66 and it was good just a pain to redo all the ends. The other is from Ron Francis and its made for Mopar cars! I plan on getting a kit for my 65 Formula S this winter as it is my project to redo the electronics on mine this winter! As I always say they are a project that never sees the light of day, always in the need of a color of green!

65Cudalover!!
 
Sounds like a ground thats off.
MWire5765-322.jpg
 
Careful, the heavy red and black traces are both 12V positive on the diagram. Black usually being ground is not te case here. They go through the ameter.
 
You said the charging gauge (ammeter ot amp meter) didn't work. Likely it's been bypassed by connecting the red and black wires Pishta mentioned. The others not working could be the instrument voltage regulator toasted. The dash lights are driven by 12 volts from the light switch. Sounds to me like a really ham-fisted wiring modification. These clusters aren't all that tough to repair or replace, and just replacing the factory gauges with new ones using 12 volt power in a modified or custom built bezel is another approach. Just remember to disconnect the battery negative cable to avoid making the magic smoke out!

BC
 
As mentioned, most of your problems are all fairly independent. The main item they share is they all rely on the cluster frame being grounded (except the ammeter).

When the fuel and temp gages both don't work, suspect the Vreg. It is inside your fuel gage. Best to disable it and replace w/ an electronic one. Search "Plymouth" and "voltage limiter" on ebay.
 
The only bulb that doesn't use chassis ground at the instrument panel is BRAKE. It gets its ground through a wire. So if that is the only bulb that works, that is a good clue.
If signal indicators, hi beam, and illumination don't work and gauges don't work, panel to chassis ground is a likely fault.
If signal indicators and high beam work, fault in the illumination is either bulbs or in headlight switch, not the panel ground.
 
I have the same problem on my 66 Barracuda it been driving me crazy!
 
I had similar problems with my 68 cuda. Turned out the fuel, temp, and oil gauges were all burnt out. The Voltage reg was inside the fuel gauge also. I ended up sending it to Ben who I found via guys on this site. He did an amazing job. He took it completely apart re-soldered and cleaned everything, converted the ammeter over to a Volt meter, rebuilt the gauges and installed his demonIVR Voltage regulator. Everything works perfectly now. He does great work and is great at keeping you informed every step of the way in the process. I highly recommend him. His website is...http://www.demonivr.com/index.html
Good luck.
 
chewy said:
Or, for the do it yourselfer, here's the circuit, the 7805 can be used, but the circuit most the way down the page allows you to dial the new regulator in.
http://www.chargersourceguide.com/voltagelimiter.html
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I get a kick out of looking at all the BS on the web. Little details like "ni-chrome wound with silk" ( its actually a blend, mostly fiberglass ) is of no consequence.
The fact that solder will not stick to the ni-chrome is apparently unknown fact. Pretty little bead of solder, huge gob of solder, no difference. The wire will pull right out of it. Because the wire heats and everything in a vehicle vibrates, conduction will vary and/or fault.
 
RedFish said:
I get a kick out of looking at all the BS on the web. Little details like "ni-chrome wound with silk" ( its actually a blend, mostly fiberglass ) is of no consequence.
The fact that solder will not stick to the ni-chrome is apparently unknown fact. Pretty little bead of solder, huge gob of solder, no difference. The wire will pull right out of it. Because the wire heats and everything in a vehicle vibrates, conduction will vary and/or fault.
Click to expand...
Not sure why u would be soldering anything directly to the bi metal in the guage, you build this and bypass th vr that is burned out in the gas guage with the chip or the circuit
 
chewy said:
Not sure why u would be soldering anything directly to the bi metal in the guage, you build this and bypass th vr that is burned out in the gas guage with the chip or the circuit
Click to expand...

The pic posted shows new ni-chrome wire winding with solder.
 
Ahhh got what u were talking about now. The regulator circuit start in the aection New Regulator about half way down was what I was referring to. The top pic, they attempted to use the 7805 within the guage housing rather than just putting the bypass In place. When I find some good dart guages, I am going to build the circuit lower down and tie it into the cuircuit feeding those two guages.
 
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