Swapping Gauges

[billywilly92]

Right now I have a gauge cluster out of an 86 with the speedo and fuel. I have a gauges cluster out of an 81 or 82 I think with the speedo, tach, fuel, volt, oil, and water temp that I want to install instead. Now how do I make this swap work? I searched around on here and I know a bunch of you know how to do this.

[Captkaos]

Verify all your pinouts on the harness plug, if they are incorrect swap them out and plug it in.  you will need the Tach harness or a wire going to the tach portion of the cap.

[billywilly92]

What do you mean verify pinouts? Do I need to make sure that my gauges circuit matches the plug? Like all the ends on the plug match up to a plug on the gauges circuit?
I have the tach wires too and they plug right in where they are supposed to so that is taken care of.

[Captkaos]

Yes, all the pins in the plug have to match or you wont get any readings.  If you started with dummy lights most of them will have to be moved.

[billywilly92]

Will buying a new circuit for my year of truck fix the problem?

[Captkaos]

the printed circuit on the cluster fix it so you don't have to verify/repin?  NO.

[billywilly92]

Ok so it doesn't matter what circuit I have, I have to repin it no matter what? I haven't looked at mine yet but what if mine doesn't have enough pins or does that not happen?

[Captkaos]

It will have enough, but their location changed based on what cluster options you had.

[billywilly92]

So how do I figure out which goes where? Is there a wiring diagram for the circuits and gauges from each year?

[billywilly92]

Does anybody have or know where to get instrument cluster wiring diagrams?

[Captkaos]

In the technical section of this forum.