Instrument Cluster

Hi everyone,
My name is Dino Trakas, and I am new to this site. I just picked up a 70 Nova 307(Storage kept California Car:cool:) last week.
The first task I have to do is the speedometer. The fuel gauge does not work and the lights do light up the background.
The car was a automatic, but was converted to a 4speed, so the cluster still has the gear selector. Is there a place that sells complete clusters, and i cant seem to find anyone that has clusters without the gear selector for the manual trans.
Any help will be greatful.
Thanks, Dino:D

Welcome to the site.

You can disassemble your cluster and paint over the PRND21 ,that's all that's really different.As for the light check to make sure the ground is wired up.

Does the fuel gauge read empty or full?Ususally if they have a bad conection they read full if it's in need of replace they read empty.

I thought the gear indicator was a plate of some sort that could be removed? I have CRS, so I could be mistaken. If not, take some lacquer thinner to the letters/#'s, and then shoot it!

If the dash lights don't work, it's usually a ground wire - I think there's 2-3 of them. Otherwise, it's the headlight dimmer switch - those old things are a pita.

M

Have taken the selector bezel PRND21 and a sharp razor blade and lift the exsisting letters off and clean w/ a little compound. Be careful not to scratch the blk paint on the bezel.
Saves a little work.

RV

thanks for the advice.

another question, the colum still has the gear selector on it, is there a kit of some sort that let you take it off, and keeps it in nuetral. sometimes the car wont start do to the selector.

thanks for the advice.

another question, the colum still has the gear selector on it, is there a kit of some sort that let you take it off, and keeps it in nuetral. sometimes the car wont start do to the selector.

Manual can be the same way,originally there was linkage to prevent this from happening.

There is a neutral safety switch on the column that prevents the car from starting when it is in the drive position.

Hi everyone,
My name is Dino Trakas, and I am new to this site. I just picked up a 70 Nova 307(Storage kept California Car:cool:) last week.
The first task I have to do is the speedometer. The fuel gauge does not work and the lights do light up the background.
The car was a automatic, but was converted to a 4speed, so the cluster still has the gear selector. Is there a place that sells complete clusters, and i cant seem to find anyone that has clusters without the gear selector for the manual trans.
Any help will be greatful.
Thanks, Dino:D

If you want to convert to a differnt instrument panel, www.covansclassic.com has different options. You can get a whole set up with new guages and wiring. They're not the cheapest, but they look good.

As far as the letters go, you can hit them with some windex and a towel, and they will come right off.

The lights not working, check your fuse. (this happened on my 70 a few times).

Fuel gauge not working? it might need a sending unit or a new gauge.

The column should be left in the Park position, so that you can turn the key all the way to the off position.

There are a couple of older threads, like from last year, about converting the column. I did mine and it isn't all that hard. GM used basically the same column on all its cars back then down to the first rag or u-joint. I swapped my '71 column shift with a column from a floor shift '72 Chevelle and it worked fine. I just replaced the rag joint with a Flaming River u-joint and threw away the extra extension that the Chevelle column had. To beat the neutral lockout you need to fix the lockout lever down on the bottom of the column in the neutral position (all the way counter-clockwise, looking at it from the steering wheel position). I used a set screw. Some will spot weld it in place. So I ended up with a nice tilt column with no shift lever, very neat looking, for $100. By the way, the steering wheels are all the same, too. Just the inserts were different on different models so you can swap your old Nova insert into your replacement wheel if you want. I don't know how wide a span of years these columns were the same, but take some measurements to the junkyards and crawl around for a bit. I see 1970s GM cars in our Pic-N-Pulls pretty frequently. Here is what I ended up with...
http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p185/dhkent55/SteeringColumnPaint.jpg

What folks are telling you about the instrument cluster is right on. Also, there are about 8 little bumble-bee bulbs on the back of it and they may need replacing. If you drop the steering column it isn't too hard to pull the cluster out (well...the speedo cable can be a pain!) and then you may as well replace all af those bulbs. They are cheap.

Dave