Date:         Thu, 9 Sep 2004 04:27:12 +0000
Reply-To:     Zach White <zwhite@DARKSTAR.FROP.ORG>
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From:         Zach White <zwhite@DARKSTAR.FROP.ORG>
Subject:      '85 instrument cluster in an 84,
              sparks when connecting to coil #1?
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; format=flowed

Hi Everyone,

Yes, it's that crazy guy who took out his heater core again. ;)

I've got the problems with my cluster figured out (I had left the
second ground dangling, piggybacking it fixed everything) but now I
have issues with the tach.

When I connect the wire I ran from the engine to the dash, I get sparks
and the injectors spray for approximately 1 second. If I try to start
the van, it won't "kick in". (I only tried starting once.) It looks to
me like something is shorting that shouldn't be, but I can't imagine
what.

Reading through the archives, it looks like I need to connect to pin 1
on the coil. This is the pin I'm connecting to. On mine, the top two
pins (one is definitely labeled 1) seem to be the same pin, to the
point of a meter showing them as full closed. I assumed they were both
the same pin, and connected to the unused pin. I even tried a vampire
tap and get the same results.

Do I have a bad tach? Everything else in the cluster works, and once I
remove the wire I can start just fine. Could a PO have done something
weird? When I bought the van, I talked to the mechanic who had rebuilt
it 20-30k miles previous. He didn't say he had used any weird parts,
although I do need to use the '85 style cap and wires (which he hadn't
mentioned). Could he have used a different coil?

-Zach