90 lumina wont keep a charge

i have a 90 lumina and the battery wont keep a charge this is a new battery,also have checked out the alternator and that is fine.does anyone have any idea what the problem could be? Also the speedometer and the gas gauge has stopped working..
thanxs for any help anyone can give

Make sure the nut on your auxiliary positive battery post is tight. If that checks out ok, maybe u have a bad battery, even though its brand new. I would take it back and have it checked.

the post is fine and also the battery..something just seems to be draining the battery and we can not figure out what it is...

to track down your power drain try this: With the car off, hook up a volt meter to your battery. Pull the fuses from the fuse block one at a time. The fuse that renders an increase in the battery voltage when it is removed, will give you a place to start.

Sounds like you might have a short to ground in the instrument panel. Does the battery go dead after sitting, or while driving?

the battery goes dead while sitting

OK then. you need to get yourself a test light (very cheap, maybe $5) and take a battery cable off and connect it between the cable and the battery. With everything off, doors shut, key out of the ignition, there should only be a very dim glow from the test light, that being the parasitic load of the ECM and the clock in the radio.

Make sure that you allow the dome light in the interior to go out before pulling the battery cable, if like mine it has a timer and slowly goes out, you'll get a strong light from the timer circuit, and it'll mess you up for this test.

Now, once you are set up, you'll have to get in the car and shut the door, or disable the door jamb switch so the dome light isn't trying to come on, and start pulling fuses until you get to the one that makes the test light go out. Then you have found the circuit your load is coming from.

Look in the owners manual or shop manual for all that is on that fuse, then start eliminating them one by one until you find the culprit.

Obviously, before you do this, make sure all trunk, underhood, glovebox, etc, lights are going out when they should. If you have one under the hood, remove the bulb while testing.

I just realized Manny already told you to do this, or something similar. He's right, this is the way you're gonna find it.

Another thing, occaisionally I've run across one that the load turned out to be the alternator itself, had a bad rectifier or something that was letting power "leak" back through it when shut off. Doesn't explain your dash issues, but keep in mind this could be two different problems, and just coincedental.