Huge electrical mess with a diesel tach... please help!

[stabmaster]

This is a '91 diesel Carat which recieved a disel motor from the previous owner. The previous owner also did a horrible job wiring things together. For one, there is a cat5 cable and a telephone cable carrying wires around! It's pretty nasty. It worked marginally until today.

The major cause of this huge clusterf*** is (1) the previous owner ran a tachometer and (2) the previous owner added a gague cluster which included a volt meter, oil pressure gague, and water temperature.

So first off I'm not attached in any way to the gagues or the tachometer. I would rather have everything work than have 4 gagues that either don't work or tell me how poorly my diesel is working due to the horrific wiring job!

So here's exhibit 1:



I do not know what any of these wires do. I can only tell you that the white arrow at the bottom points down to the Dakota Digital diesel tach converter.

Most interestingly, the Dakota Digital is attached further to yet another tachometer board.

Now instead of trying to untangle this mess, I need a shopping list! Please let me know how to get out of this mess.

First, I read a few posts regarding how it is not necessary to have any converters to get a diesel cluster tach running off of the "W" alternator lead. Secondly, if this is not true, then how hard is it to get a working tach while utilizing the Dakota Digital DSL-1 B

I found the instructions here:
http://www.dakotadigital.com/pdf/dsl-1d.pdf

It simply takes the W input and converts to the 4 cyl output. 3 wires! This friggin thing had like 6 wires on it.

Anyways, which cluster and which tachometer do i need to start over here?

Here's another pic

[Powjetta]

I changed my cluster from the one with the big clock on the right to the the diesel tachometer cluster, and the tach worked with just plugging the connectors in.  Looks like some of those wires are for the dash lights.

[the caveman]

get a diesel cluster, plug it in ,forget the previous nightmare

[Vincent Waldon]

Or, since you already have the Dakota digital converter... get another gasser cluster.  

Some of the wires appear to be for fixing the lighting, others look like he was fixing bad connections on the circuit board itself.... and so on.  If you can, probably best toss it?

[stabmaster]

sounds good to me! I will shop around for a diesel cluster

found this one, but it's metric - which is cool, but may be a bit confusing when trying to follow speeding laws.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/_Car-Truck-Parts-Accessories__VW-MK2-MKII-Diesel-Instrument-Cluster-WITH-TACH_W0QQitemZ220341998010QQadiZ2865QQadnZCarQ20Q26Q20TruckQ20PartsQ20Q26Q20AccessoriesQQcmdZViewItemQQptZMotors_Car_Truck_Parts_Accessories?hash=item220341998010&_trksid=p4506.c0.m245&_trkparms=72%3A727%7C65%3A12%7C39%3A1%7C240%3A1318

can anyone tell me what that white thing that he's pointing hat is (the part he claims is broken?)
Thanks!

[Smokey Eddy]

I have nooooo idea.

It's a little odd that he doesn't say it was working when it came out of the car he said he doesn't have anymore...
just that he can't check that it works because he doesn't have the car anymore...
Maybe it was a replacement or something. Looks clean!

[zukgod1]

Kinda looks like hes talking about the Blue ribbon maybe?


You can use that cluster and swap in your speedo head, you end up with a plug n play cluster with a MPH face.

[stabmaster]

Kinda looks like hes talking about the Blue ribbon maybe?


You can use that cluster and swap in your speedo head, you end up with a plug n play cluster with a MPH face.

Thanks! That's what i was thinking.

By the way zukigod thanks for doing my turbo for me. It's running like a champ! Spools up nicely and, with the 2.5" exhaust, really tears it up!