Early to late model cluster swap?

[m5james]

4 year bump :)

Remember the days of libraries, searching for a subject and then having to read multiple books in order to get that ONE little piece of information you needed?

Better to revive an old thread of the same topic and keep the information on one thread vs spreading potential misinformation over multiple threads...

[m5james]

Yup, I bet your 7k cluster was from a later car.

t

Yup, I'd mentioned that above...now to take it apart without trying to break anything :-)

[Jean]

4 year bump :)

[TobyB]

Yup, I bet your 7k cluster was from a later car.

t

[m5james]

I still have an early cluster, I'll try swapping the gauge itself over.

[TobyB]

You need an early model gas gauge.

t

[m5james]

No, it'll just make your gauge go to empty when you've still got half left.

t

I'm experiencing this issue now...bought an 86 325e with an 87 325is engine already swapped into it. The person who did the swap didn't change from the 5K redline to a 7k redline cluster, so my first time driving it threw me off because I was doing 70mph and the tach was pegged out...I thought this can't be right. Fast forward, I've bought the proper 7k redline cluster but the GF and I didn't know about the gas gauge differences...until she called me at work crying that the car had half a tank of gas, yet the yellow light was on and it still wouldn't start. Knowing now that half is empty, how do I fix this properly so the needle has a full sweep?

Local friend said to swap the white chip from the 5k cluster into the 7k cluster, turned the ignition on and the gauge still reads half a tank even though it's still empty, so I put the chips back into their original clusters. Next I was told to try swapping the cluster fuel gauges themselves...the most I've ever opened a cluster before is to add chrome trim rings so I want to make sure this is the proper fix before I open clusters for nothing.

[etaclay]

Did you swap in a refurbished cluster or cluster with a refurbished SI board? If not, your OBC probably does not work because your SI board is dead.

You can swap clusters from early to late but you will need to swap over the speedometer and fuel gauge and all will be well.

OBC worked beforehand. I'll give that a try though and see if it works. Thanks for the info. I'll get back and let you know how it fared.

[Gregs///M]

Did you swap in a refurbished cluster or cluster with a refurbished SI board? If not, your OBC probably does not work because your SI board is dead.

You can swap clusters from early to late but you will need to swap over the speedometer and fuel gauge and all will be well.

[TobyB]

No, it'll just make your gauge go to empty when you've still got half left.

t

[etaclay]

You swapped the gas gauge, right?

...or tank, I guess...

t

No I didn't swap either. Would that cause the issue?

[TobyB]

You swapped the gas gauge, right?

...or tank, I guess...

t

[etaclay]

Also, my RPMs would be off by a significant amount.

[etaclay]

I put a late model cluster into a early model 325e 1986. The late model had the coding plug and my obc still works on every function

Really? My '85 has the coding plug in the rear. When I swapped in a cluster from a car with a coding plug in the front it would no longer read range, avg speed or avg mpgs.

[efficient]

I put a late model cluster into a early model 325e 1986. The late model had the coding plug and my obc still works on every function