69 Dart Convertible Dash Lights Fuse Block Question

[CudaRSSS]

Hi All,

We are new to the A bodies. I am a Mopar fanatic, have a 70 Cuda and 71 Challenger Convertible. Recently found a restored (well mostly) 69 Dart convertible 318 4 speed. I understand a pretty rare car. The guy did a beautiful job on the paint, interior and body, lacked doing the electrical stuff.

Here is what is wrong

* The dash lights do not work, nothing, not even the turn signal lights, though they do work ex.

* When I step on the brake the front parking lights come on

The wipers do not work

* I checked the fuse block, all the fuses except one have power, the one on the far left (see picture) is dead, I cannot tell what it should be for, any help?

* The gas and temperature do not work either, though the Alt does (in the dash)

* The car has external gauges that do work.

Keep trying to add pics...

 

[67Dart273]

That fuse panel looks AWFUL. You have wires which someone stuck into the fuse holder, NOT legitimate, and the fuse holder clips are rusty and in bad shape

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The fuse on the far left is the instrument lamp fuse, and it is a bit of a 'trick.'

Your headlight switch GETS power from two separate sources.

Headlights ONLY is powered off a factory welded splice in the black ammeter wire coming off one side of the ammeter, and this branches off to feed the 'hot' fuses in the box, the ignition switch, and the headlight power

The TAIL lights and parking lights is separate to the switch, and comes from the tail fuse. THIS power also goes through the switch, through the dimmer control, and off to...............

the instrument light fuse, through the fuse, and then off to (via orange wires) to all dash dimmer controlled lamps

So in order for that inst. fuse to be hot............

You must have a good tail lamp fuse, have power to the light switch,

the light switch must be in park or head.........

the dimmer control must be somewhat to the left (brighter)...

and then you should have power to one side of the inst. fuse. IF the fuse is good, you should have power on both sides, and the inst. lamps (at least some) should light

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Wipers: Refer to the factory manual in section 8. You'll need to identify what type of motor you have, as test procedures vary. One caveat is that the wiper switch MUST be grounded, as that is part of the circuit

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Gauges. Think of these as an end to end system. Power comes to the cluster from the ignition switch. the connector pins on the cluster PC boards are subject to becoming loose and corrosion. You can sometimes solder or repair them. On my 67 several were broken and I elected to solder pigtails to the board traces and use Molex type connectors

The fuel/ temp gauge operate off the instrument voltage limiter, a small rectangular box which plugs into the board. This can be bad, or at leas out of calibration. On my board, the spring finger contacts which make connection to the VR were not making contact with the board traces. I had to solder jumpers between the contact fingers and the board, and replace the IVR. I used a solid state one from RTE Engineering

The gauge nuts are "fake" tin nuts, and corrode. Loosen/ tighten them several times to scrub the contacts or replace with "real" nuts. The sender leads go back out through the board connector pins, once again a source of corrosion or looseness.

From there the sender wires go................

temp gauge goes through the bulkhead connector, a source of corrosion.

fuel gauge goes through the connector in the left kick panel on the way to the rear (tail light harness)

And, the connectors on the ends of the gauges can be bad, and the SENDERS can be bad.

A very very quick test is to ground the sender wires at the sender, then go in and switch on the key for a few seconds and see if the gauge heads to the high end. Do not leave this on for long

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As far as the other problems, this sounds to me like more than a couple of problems

First do you have a shop manual? You can download one for free here:

http://www.forabodiesonly.com/mopar/showthread.php?p=1970088657

You can get somewhat simplified, but not always complete diagrams at MyMopar. Sometimes, for some problems, these are easier to follow

http://www.mymopar.com/index.php?pid=31

These two

http://www.mymopar.com/downloads/1969/69DartA.jpg

http://www.mymopar.com/downloads/1969/69DartB.jpg

Also please read this excellent article

Even if you do not perform this modification, this points out the whys and hows of problems with the bulkhead connector, how the battery, ammeter, and alternator power come into/ out of the car

http://www.madelectrical.com/electricaltech/amp-gauges.shtml

 

[67Dart273]

This shows what I did to mine

The top photo shows the instrument limiter socket. Those brass fingers were not making contact with the VR unit

Bottom photo shows generally how I scraped the (in this case blue) coating off the board, down to copper, and soldered pigtails leading off to the new Molex connectors

Also, up by the speedo connection, you can see an added pigtail for ground. This bolts to a hole in the steering column support

Also, the ammeter has been replaced with a voltmeter, this thread here:

http://www.forabodiesonly.com/mopar/showthread.php?t=119480

 

[RedFish]

Welcome to FABO neighbor ( I'm in Easley ).