Power for guages

[TboneMan]

I started my guage installation project this afternoon and it came to a halt. How do you get power to these things?



Which wires should I tap (color and location)? Where is the best place to do this? There doesn't seem to be much room to work on things under the dash.



Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

[Evan A. Beck]

You'll need three wires to get your gauges up and running... 12V+, ground, and a lighting circuit.



For the 12V+, solder (NOT t-tap or scotchlock) a wire with a fuse to the big blue wire in the bundle coming down the steering column. This is an ignition-on wire, which is exactly what you need. For the ground, just connect to the metal dash frame somehwere. Last, you'll need the gauge lighting. For this one, I always pull the cluster bezel off, and remove the headlight switch. There will be a bunch of wires on the back of it. You'll want to solder onto the tan wire here. No fuse needed, because it is already fused. Avoid using any scotchlocks, t-taps, or fuse taps. Given time, they will fail. I have seen it happen so many times.



Have fun!

 

[TboneMan]

Thanks Evan,



What amperage fuse do you recommend?

 

[MikeR]

T,

No fuse is needed because your light circut is already fused. Evan also says this in his his post above.

 

[Evan A. Beck]

A fuse is needed on only the 12V+ wire... A small 4A fuse is all that is needed. Not required for the light circuit though.

 

[SnoKing]

Evan, I have my gauge lighting dimming with the dash lights and would like them to come on with the head lights, when I turnup the dash lights all the way, I can read the A pillar gauges, however the dash lights are too bright at that point. I have a mini toggle switch in the A-Pillar pod to kill them at night if I want to. Where is the best place to tap the head light circuit. The wires on the back of the head light switch are a very small gauge wire. SNOKING

 

[RJOL]

What are you asking?

Snow King,



Maybe Evan has a better idea of just what your asking. When you tap the back of the headlight switch (The tan wire on the corner, pin#14) you lights will come on with the headlights when you turn the switch to park or on. The amperage that is being pulled from this wire to power your gauge lights is so little you would be hard pressed to measure it, for most 2" gauges. If your gauges are too dim, it will make no differrence were you tap them into. Its a problem with the gauge light, not where your tapping into. The wires behind the headlight control switch are more than adequate to power these small bulbs. If your problem is that when you dim the instrument lights you can't see your gauges (light to dim), then you could tap into your headlight relay on the headlight control switch, but you would lose the dimming feature.

 

[SnoKing]

That's what I am looking for, a non-dimming power source, that follows the parking lights. SNOKING

 

[RJOL]

Okay, I got you now...

Snow King,



On the 14 way connector to the headlight switch pin #6 is the headlight switch output. It should be light green in color. This should give you a 12V source for your guage lights. If you have a volt meter, check to see if you got the right wire...

 

[SnoKing]

RJOL, thanks I will give it a check out. SNOKING

 

[RJOL]

More Info

Took another look at the wiring diagram and it also list pin #1 as a headlight switch output. It is black and yellow. If I remember correctly, when I worked on my alarm system, that's the wire I tapped into for the headlights to flash with the alarm system...