broken gauges... (suggestions?)

Hi Folks,

My wife has a 1988 Nissan Sentra coupe, 2 door. It has 100k (just rolled to 100k yesterday). Anyhow, the car, while not pretty runs great. We've updated and replaced the normal items to keep it running well.

Over the Christmas holiday - we noticed her gas and temp gauges would both fail with in 5 minutes of starting the car.

When we first start the car, the gas gauge shows the correct amount of gas, and the temp gauge starts to show the engine warming up. However, within 5 minutes each gauge goes flat even though we have a full tank of gas and the engine is plenty warm.

Would anyone know what would cause both gauges to fail? The do it at the same time too.

We're not too concerned, but it's getting to be a hassle to fret over how much gas we have. It would be so simple it we only had a trip odometer. We write our mileage down - but we'd like to see if this can be fixed easily.

Any suggestions or comments?

Thanks,
dave
Portland, OR

It is the voltage regulator on the back of the guage cluster. It is a small square module on the back of the cluster with a few wires coming out of it. There are two different types Nissan lists --either p/n 24866-54A00 or 24866-51S05. Take yours to the dealer and match it up.

no such animal on a 2000 sentra gxe (1.8), gauges were erratic, then quit totally. i have the cluster out now, with no signs of a small, square module with a few wires coming out. will take to the stealer and hopefully get some advice for what is probably a common problem. will keep advised!

stealer wants me to buy new gauge cluster, but they aren't sure if that is the problem. i re-assembled everything, and left out the plastic (spacer, backing? i don't know what it is) gauges worked fine, for a while. so, with a couple of mighty whacks of frustration on the dash, the gauges have started working, and have been in compliance ever since! if only i'da tried that first!