My idiot gauges will not work. I purchased a new old stock ICVR and installed it last night and still nothing. Everything else in the cluster is fine and I checked the fuse panel. Am I missing something?
I also looked at the newer style regulators that have a capacitor, but I don't think they went up to 9 volts, I think I only found the replacement ones (with a male and female that would swap out) for 6 volts?
SOLD: 1988 Thunderbird Turbocoupe, Now a 5 Speed, all options, Black. Stinger 3 into 2 with Magnaflows, Gillis Valve
Check the light gray/yellow resistance wire from the ignition switch to the cluster. It isnt part of a harness, it just "hangs" there. If measuring voltage with a DMM at the cluster connector when connector is off the cluster, you should get 12 V with key in RUN.
Pete is right... the IVR has nothing to do with any lighting of any kind.
The mechanical IVR outputs a square wave with a frequency of .5 Hertz or so that varies from around 8 V to 0 V. The average voltage is supposed to be 5 V. Supplying the gauges with a constant 5 V (I found 5.5V works best) with a solid state voltage regulator is the way to go.
Jeff Korn
88 Turbo Coupe: Intake and exhaust mods, T3 turbo at 24 psi, forced air IC, water injection, BPV, Ranger cam, subframes, etc., etc.
86 Tbird 5.0 (original owner): intake, exhaust, valvetrain mods, 100 HP N2O, ignition, gears, suspension, etc., etc.
11 Crown Vic Interceptor
14 Toyota Camry (wifes car)
95 Taurus GL Vulcan winter beater
67 Honda 450 Super Sport - completely customized
03-23-2016, 02:06 PM (This post was last modified: 03-23-2016, 05:33 PM by Big Al.)
Jeff K Wrote:Check the light gray/yellow resistance wire from the ignition switch to the cluster. It isnt part of a harness, it just "hangs" there.
I found a black wire that is in the same pin location as that gray/yellow wire and the black wire is cut. I cannot find the other end of it or where it should go. I tried grounding it but that did not make a difference. The gray/yellow wire looked fine, did not have the ability to measure its voltage.
According to the diagram, The gray/yellow has a black wire coming out of the same pin but I do not know what the rest means in the pic?? It just says shield?
What voltage did you get at the cluster end of the GY/Y wire? Try a test light at that location. Test light should light, but not full brightness. How bright depends on amp draw of the test light. Might also check the resistance of the wire to see if it is roughly in spec.
Jeff Korn
88 Turbo Coupe: Intake and exhaust mods, T3 turbo at 24 psi, forced air IC, water injection, BPV, Ranger cam, subframes, etc., etc.
86 Tbird 5.0 (original owner): intake, exhaust, valvetrain mods, 100 HP N2O, ignition, gears, suspension, etc., etc.
11 Crown Vic Interceptor
14 Toyota Camry (wifes car)
95 Taurus GL Vulcan winter beater
67 Honda 450 Super Sport - completely customized
I'm not sure if this will help with this problem, but I'd recommend you find a better electrical schematic than the one you've posted. It looks like that's a page from the manual that accompanies Ford's official shop manual set. While the other manuals are very good, I've found various inaccuracies in those schematics (my copy is full of handwritten notes), to the point that I'll only use it as a "second opinion" or to correlate data from another source.
Items often don't appear within the current flow, or point to the wrong areas/other items which are incorrect.
For what it is--which is a simple schematic to quickly diagnose problems--it works okay. But for a more serious problem IMHO I think you'll need a better schematic.
Years ago a fellow TC owner loaned me his Chilton manual, which I promptly photocopied all the wiring schematics I found within. I just did a quick search and found this, which is a somewhat better choice (I'm sure others here have better ones):
1987 Turbo Coupe w/T5OD, 8.8 axle, grey smoke; most options. Got it in 1991 with 41K miles: 3 turbos, 2 heater cores, 3 T5OD full rebuilds, 6 clutches, 1 head gasket, 2 Teves II ABS units, etc. later....
