And the adventure continues.......had my 80Z out for the first time at night, and discovered the guages are dark. Checked the fuse...5A I believe, and it tested good, so what now. Wiring under dash is tough to trace. Should I pull guage cluster? By the way...speedo works fine...voltmeter fine....tach looks to be stuck at 2500....temp, oil pressure and clock seem to be dead....any thoughts?

 

check the dimmer wiring. mine was the same for a while. I just decided to get new gauges lol. Could also be something as small as getting a new bulb?

 

I'd suspect the dimmer first. I'd also pull a dash lamp to see if it's good before messing with the dimmer. If the dash lamps are good, then you can try cleaning up the headlight switch, but probably end up replacing it anyway.
Try pulling the park lights on, then grab the **** on the switch and turn it back and forth numerous times and watch the dash lights. They may flicker a you do this, and if they do the dimmer part of the headlight switch is going bad.
If you end up changing it, be sure to disconnect the battery prior to doing the job.

 

When I got my 78 Z28 a couple months ago the headlights didn't work, and I'm pretty sure only one dash light worked, by the tachometer. I changed the dimmer switch, that didn't do anything, and then changed the headlight switch which was way easier than I thought it would be. Old one was disgusting, so corroded I couldn't believe it. Now all my dash lights and my headlights work. Only my tach, fuel, and voltmeter work though. I'm wondering if the more experienced guys on here would recommend changing dash gauges over trying to mess w/ wiring?

 

Sound like just your temp and oil don't work. Those may not be the gauges, but posibly either a wiring connection or sending unit. I'd look at both before wasting money on a new cluster and then finding other issues.

 

Thanks guys...I think I'll start with the headlight switch, then move on. I looked at one of the non fuctioning bullbs, at the wiper switch, and it looked OK but I did not test. I'll post an update when I find something new!