yotaman90

Well I was just buttoning up the last few bits of my SR5 gauge cluster install, and everything worked great, until I plugged the dimmer switch and deck light switch. Went to fire the truck up and noticed that only the charging light came on. Thought that was weird, but I started the truck and guess what, the dash and dash lights quit on me. The only lights that come on are the ones for the charging system and high beams, and the charging system light is on at all times. The turn signals also quit and only turn on with the hazard switch. Headlights, taillights, side marker lights, license plate lights, and dome light all work normally. My clinometer light also quit working but my radio works fine. Truck starts and runs normally and all fuses are good, but I can't figure it out. Would anyone have any ideas? I'm at wits end

myyota

Just an idea, but try putting the stock cluster back in and see if everything works, if not then check all if your fuses again.

yotaman90

I'll try that tomorrow, but I doubt it will do anything. And every single fuse was good, kick panel, engine compartment, and behind the glovebox. What would a constant charging light mean?

yotaman90

Bump

yotaman90

Well since I'm pretty much talking to myself in this thread, I went ahead and did what myyota said and put my original cluster back in. And it reacted the same as the SR5 cluster i.e no lights/gauges. So I thought that I would test the alternator to see if that could be a problem, and I pulled the battery cable with the truck running and lo and behold, it died! So I figured that I was on to something and I went ahead and pulled the alternator and had it tested at Autozone. But it tested good so I'm back to square one. Then I remembered that a lady I know has a truck that her son wrecked that I've been pulling parts off of. Its the same year and model as mine only standard cab long bed, so I'm thinking about pulling the harness out of her truck and swapping it into mine. Unless somebody can come up with a simple fix for my current harness, I will probably go that route

yotaman90

Truck is fixed! Turns out it was a multitude of small things that caused my dash to fail. 1: somewhere along the line in my trucks life, someone had tried splicing into the dimmer switch. So when I took the lower dash apart, the wiring hack job came apart and that is what caused my interior lights to stop working. 2: I missed a blown fuse which caused my gauges and alternator to fail . Apparently the volt gauge completes a circuit with the alternator, which means when the fuse blew, my gauges quit which caused the circuit to be broken and the alternator to not charge. 3: Somewhere else along the line, the cable between the fuse box and the battery was replaced with a thinner gauge wire which also contributed to the charging/fuse problem. I replaced the thin wire with a thicker gauge wire and it did the trick. Now everything works perfect!