Plz delete. No longer needed.

[WynneDeeFanchon]

Plz delete thread. No longer needed.

[bobdavisnpf]

I had similar issues. My shop found a loose ground wire on the cluster. Tightened it up and all ok for several months. They had to pull the cluster to find and fix. Now the tach takes 10 minutes or so to kick in, then works the rest of the drive; lights and temp gauge are fine. I'll be going into it myself sometime this year - need to fix the odometer anyway.

[Gregs///M]

The temp and tach gauge issues are related to a failed SI board and the main circuit board needing to be refurbished. There are actually lots of threads on this issue. You can find more info about the SI board and how it affects the tach and temp gauges at this link. bavrest.com/technical-articles.html.

[WynneDeeFanchon]

The temp and tach gauge issues are related to a failed SI board and the main circuit board needing to be refurbished. There are actually lots of threads on this issue. You can find more info about the SI board and how it affects the tach and temp gauges at this link. bavrest.com/technical-articles.html.

Yea, I've found forums explaining those problems and I assume that that would be the issue with the lighting and the tachometer. But I don't think that explains the temperature gauge always being pegged hot even when the car is off.

[superj]

mine was like that till the head gasket went. I still have to swap out the engine with my back up to see if its still going to read hot but I bet it will because my head gasket went from corrosion, not getting to hot. it never felt hot, like an engine that runs hot does.

anyways, I took my cluster apart numerous times to try and fix it and even swapped in other temp gauges and they all read the same so I think the board is messed up on mine. I traced it out with my soldering magnifier and fixed some odd spots but not what was causing the problem. maybe yours is like mine because mine is an 86 325 also

[Gregs///M]

Yea, I've found forums explaining those problems and I assume that that would be the issue with the lighting and the tachometer. But I don't think that explains the temperature gauge always being pegged hot even when the car is off.

When a gauge has lack of grounding, it will read full hot. Since your temp gauge reads hot when the key is out, the needle is either stuck or the SI board is powering the temp gauge to be full hot all the time. Try tapping the cluster to see if needle drops but I would start by tightening the 7mm nut and see if it works better.