90 camaro hell update

[miecow]

well i've been serching this car top to bottom for every problem i can find.. it was a neglected pos.. but its a solid body and it does have a strong motor..for a 6.. it was low on oil, 1/2 gallon down on coolant.. (was straight water). and has mickey mouse wiring everywere
since i got the car for $100 a week ago i've tuned it up, spark plugs, wires,air filters,oil chainge and flushed the cooling system.and also pulled god knows how many wires out of the dash that werent original..
i got the dash lights to work again it doesn't stall anymore but my gauges still don't work.. (tach and oil pressure).. all this while working 6 days a week taking care of my 8 month old daughter and keeping my girl from bitching too much about working on the car too much..
love it too much to stop.. i get used to the bitching

[ct91rs]

I just got done fixing the gauges on a '91, and I believe it is the same on a '90:

regarding the oil pressure gauge, if the speedometer and the fuel gauge work, then it isn't a problem with a ground or power source, because they are common to all three, that leaves the signal coming from the oil pressure sending unit.

if the voltmeter and the coolant temp gauges work, then the tach is getting power, but it does have a separate ground, and then there is the signal coming from the vehicle speed sensor buffer.

I don't know of an easy way to find the source of the problem other than to do an ohm test on the wires involved, and see if they were so of those that were disconnected. This would require taking the dash apart so you can get the instrument cluster out. At the back there are two connectors. On the connector on the left you will find a white wire on the right corner, this goes from the distributer to the tach. There is also a black/white wire opposite the white wire, and this is the ground for the tach.

on the connector on the right, you will find a tan wire, third from the end, it goes from the oil pressure sending unit to the oil pressure gauge.

if you do an ohm test at each end of the wire you should find high or infinite resistence where the problem lies. Either find where it is open, or run another wire.

I hope this helps, good luck.

[Morley]

Checked the fuse? If it is blown and blows again when replaced, look at the EGR soleniod connector, it is known to short internally and is on the same circuit.

[miecow]

well i got the dash lights to work but for some reason my speedo isn't working now. so the tach is maxed out all the time, the speedo jumps from 0 to 30 then back to zero..or just maxes out the oil pressure gauge jumps alot from o pressure to everywere . the only gauges that seem to work are the charge and fuel gauges..if i can't figure this out is their any aftermarket gauge clusters for this car?

[Morley]

What you really need is a wiring diagram for the instruments and an ohm meter, with those it should be pretty easy to get it figured out.

[miecow]

i only have one day a week to work on the car due to working mon through sat but the only gauges that do work are the fuel, the charge and the temp gauges, the tach maxes out, the speedo jumps to thirty or so here and their the oil pressure goes up at idle and down at throttle.. i got the car dirt cheap $100..and it seems to be all wiring problems..(its a new england car with no rust anywere

[Morley]

Ok, Speedo...I believe that car has an electronic speedo, ets its signal from the VSS mounted in the trnasmission where the speedo cable would normally go. So it is either the VSS (but not if the ECM doesn't throw a VSS code), the wiring to the speedo or it is the speedo itself, I would bet on ths speedo being bad..but that's just me.

Oil pressure guage...you can get an elcheapo mechanical guage from walmart and hook it in where the pressure sender is and see what it says. If it reads good then either the sender is bad or the gauge...bet on the sender.

Tach..3rd gen tach's are famous for going bad

[miecow]

yeah.. i think i'm gonna go junkyard hopping and see if i can find the entire cluster, change it and see what happens