Matt Mc_Carthy wrote in a message to Roy J. Tellason:

 WC>> Speedo and tach is now electronic as well.

 RJT> Same in my car.  The speedo didn't work in the car until I fixed 
 RJT> a poor connection underneath.  Somebody had "shortened" a wire 
 RJT> under there and the splicing was done really poorly,  no tape,  
 RJT> nothing,  so when I first got the car the speedo didn't work at 
 RJT> all.

 RJT> Tach is not currently working as I blew a fuse,  same one that 
 RJT> runs the dome light,  dashboard computer,  radio presets (!),  
 RJT> and apparently the tach as well.  The glovebox is out and in the 
 RJT> back seat,  and the wire for its light shorted out.  I'll 
 RJT> replace the fuse when I put it back in there.

 MMC> Have you ever given me some ideas!  My older daughter's Olds had a
 MMC> problem last Summer, 'something' blew the fuse for the dome light.
 MMC> After a week's worth of hunting down, I found a dime had bounced
 MMC> from her coin tray (ashtray) into the lighter socket and that's
 MMC> what kept blowing the fuse.  Got the lights working again, but
 MMC> never placed any connection to the instruments.  Rode with her
 MMC> last week and noticed the tach was WAY off and the speedometer was
 MMC> happily bouncing up and down with the road bumps.

 MMC> Wonder if something there damaged the instrument computer...  
 MMC> hmmm... 

I had something blowing that fuse intermittently before that point,  and
was never sure just what it was.  Somebody got in there before I did,  and
about a dozen or so of the screws mounting the stuff in the dash are
missing :-(,  which I guess explains the rattle.  The dome light itself
could be part of the problem as it's not stuck in the mounting properly, 
no headliner.  And there's at least one wire to "instrument
lighting" that doesn't have a connection to what it's supposed to, 
maybe more.  The radio display also "fades" on me from time to
time,  and when I press on the front of the radio it comes back.  So I
still have some work to do there yet,  in addition to finding the original
problem with the vacuum leak.

Those detroit engineers!  :-)

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