rats nest of wires

[ohnojeremy]

so i have a 1972 plymouth scamp and alot of my gauges dont work and lights also like my right blinker dash lights works but the left doesnt and alt gauge works but temp and gas seem not to im wanting to know should i fix the wiring now(and how hard is that going to be )
or since i plan on putting a 318 in it should i wait till then

 

[Bulldozer]

is this just limited to the dash cluster or are you having other problems with exterior lighting and engine bay electrical

 

[funwithfuel]

odds are the lamp sockets are weak, for the turn indicator. The fuel n water temp you should be lookin at your voltage limiter. or you can check the lead to your fuel sender or water temp sender. You should see a pulsing voltage up to about 5 volts. Of course you wanna check all yer fuses first. Good luck

 

[ohnojeremy]

no all outside lights work replaced all fuses i have like a tester where the light pops on if it has volts and some of the things i tested it didnt light up

 

[67Dart273]

First it would really help if you'd order up some punctuation so we can read what you post

Second, if you don't have one, you can download the 72 factory shop manual for free right here:

http://www.forabodiesonly.com/mopar/showthread.php?t=132309&highlight=manual,+download

Direct link:

[ame]http://www.abodyjoe.com/pictures/Misc.%20car%20info/1972%20Plymouth%20Chassis%20Serv%20Man.pdf[/ame]

I don't see that swapping engines has any particular bearing on fixing some of your problems. You may generate MORE problems during the swap, and it would be handy if you had most of them fixed beforehand, so you don't argue with problems you could have avoided

Treat each problem "as if it were separate." Sometimes problems are, sometimes not

Some things you MUST have is a 12V test lamp, some sort of digital multimeter, and a couple of bags of test clip leads from someplace like Radio Shack. All this should cost you less than 50 bucks

So what do you have?

Left flasher? Both front rear, just front, just rear? Do the brakelights work?

The ammeter has nothing to do with the temp/ fuel gauges

Some of the problems with the temp/ fuel gauges:

Pins broken on the PC board/ harness connector to the cluster.

Poor cluster ground

Bad instrument voltage reducer

Poor connections at the voltage reducer "socket"

Poor connections at the temp/ fuel gauges.

Along with "normal" stuff, bad senders, poor wiring connections to the sender wires

GENERALLY these cars all seem to suffer from poor connections in the bulkhead connector--the large connector going through the firewall. It would pay to yank it apart and clean/ inspect, etc.

We could go on, here for hours. Do some searching. Lots and LOTS of electrical posts on this forum

Read this MAD article

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

which came from here

http://www.madelectrical.com/electrical-tech.shtml