I have started in the instrument panel phase. Most of my wire is now ship shape...

I have encountered a few burnt pins located behind left side where five pin connector plugs into the body of the rear of the cluster. At some time in the past someone has soldered a few leads to the circuit board, and one of the spades of the voltage limiter to activate the fuel gage.

I'm not clear on how to test the voltage limiter, and fuel & temp gages on the bench.

I can rig up a new 5 prong connector & pig tail to get the job done so it can be plugged together for easily installation.

An other item that is not referenced in the manual, is what looks to be some kind of condenser mounted to the center of the rear of the cluster just to the left (when viewing from the drivers seat) of where the speedometer cable inserted. What dose the male spade connector from this device connect to?

_________________
67' Dart GT Convertible; the old Chrysler Corp.
82' LeBaron Convertible; the new Chrysler Corp
07' 300 C AWD; Now by Fiat, the old new Chrysler LLC

There is often a noise suppression capacitor attached to the voltage limiter output; it just decreases electrical noise that may be seen by the radio. I'd test it before using it - it should have near infinite ohms on a DMM. Anything less than ~100k ohms means it's probably failing and ought to be replaced (old electrolytic capacitors often go bad).

Early models had the voltage limiter inside the fuel gauge, later it was separate device. Either way, when grounded and feed +12V, it should provide ~1-2Hz pulsing +12V (after ~20sec of warmup) - the *average* output ought to be around 5V. A 12V test lamp is a good for testing. This pulsing output feeds the gauges.

If that looks OK, the temp, fuel, and oil gauges ought to read Hot|Full|High when connected to about a ~10ohm load and Cold|Empty|Low for a ~77ohm load. A typical 12V test lamp will make the gauges read very roughly 1/3 scale and blink, enough to tell you the gauges at least partially work. It is easy to fry these gauges, so be careful.

In my experience, I've not seen a gauge go partially bad - they just completely died, but I imagine their bimetalic strips could crack and make them respond oddly. There is a little slot in most to adjust the calibration, but I've never tried to do it.

You can do away with the condenser by replacing the original mechanical voltage limiter with an electronic voltage limiter. These are available for sale already made or easily make your own from a few dollars in parts.

The DeMon Instrument Voltage Regulator
http://www.demonivr.com/index.html

Convert Your Dash Gauge Voltage Regulator To Solid State And Get Your Gauges Working
http://www.earlycuda.org/tech/gauge-convert.htm

Mopar Instrument Cluster Voltage Regulator Build
http://1962to1965mopar.ornocar.org/ml-i ... tor64.html

Voltage Limiter Upgrade
http://www.allpar.com/history/mopar/electrical2.html