auto_editor

I was doing some looking around for GM B-Body wagons like my '89 and I noticed that the Oldsmobile is the only one with a "horizontal" (rectangular) speedometer/gauge setup.

[Regardless of year of manufacture, Buicks, Chevys and Pontiacs all share similar sets of "circles".]

Sorry no pics yet, but it has me wondering: Are rectilinear gauges an Oldsmobile "thing"? If not, why would GM make an exception for Olds rather than just use round gauges on all of them?

Don't get me wrong; I LIKE the Lego-like setup I have. If nothing else, it saves me from having to stare at lots of fake wood thanks to not requiring large "bezels" that put round gauges in square holes.

[Heck, practically EVERYTHING on my Custom Cruiser is rectangular, save for the wheels...]

Bluevista

Mine are round and plenty of other year Oldsmobiles are too.

I don't know how it can be figured that "Regardless of year of manufacture, Buicks, Chevys and Pontiacs all share similar sets of "circles", who says and where did they get their info from??

I can think of all kinds of those cars that had rectangular gauge/dash pod deals, the '66 Chevelle for example.
I actually think Oldsmobile leaned more toward the round gauges than all of them.

auto_editor

[How is it that there are pictures of everything in the world yet NONE of the thing I'm looking for?...]

RESTATE: It looks to me like only the Oldsmobile either had or retained this "OLD" style gauge setup, even until the "end" (my second-to-last-year '89 has a dash that looks just like this one)...




[This is NOT my car, but it's the best I could find of an '88 or '89 model.]

...while the B-C-P wagons had either round gauges in individual square binnacles or, later, one LARGE see-through plastic panel covering multiple displays.

[I don't know how to copy pics from eBay so I'm just listing the listings and you can check out the dashboard pics there...]

1988 CHEVROLET CAPRICE WAGON
http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/1988-...61ec6992#v4-33

1988 PONTIAC SAFARI WAGON
http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/1988-...a8fc8326#v4-37

I can't say that about EVERY model/year/manufacturer, but every version of the late-1980s gigantic RWD GM wagon EXCEPT the Oldsmobile Custom Cruiser has either the individual round gauges (early cars, can't find pics) or the "gauges behind glass" you can see in the eBay listings.

Sounds to me, though, like it's NOT an "Olds thing." SO, why is this the case? Why did the Olds dash alone have this very old-school arrangement and why did they keep it instead of changing it like the others did?

[Alright, round two. Hopefully that makes more sense...]

rocketraider

Because Oldsmobile was Oldsmobile. Even when GM was trying to force "corporate" on them, they found ways to make their stuff stand out from the pack.

Olds has switched speedometers from oblong to round to oval to linear to square and back many times. No rhyme or reason, just whatever the interior stylists came up with for the year.

Besides, it's a friendly dashboard. I put LED lighting in my speedometer head this afternoon. The RH cluster light has always worked when it pleased, but when the LH one went out a while back... I disassembled the dash to get to it and when trying to push the new lamp in the socket the whole shebang pushed thru the heat-brittled carrier and fell out in the floor. I had driven with no speedometer lighting all winter and finally got around to installing the LED strip today. A little bright... but it's the best lighting the speedometer cluster has had in the 16 years I've owned the beast.

auto_editor

On another note, I have the same climate control, um, controls as shown in the picture and they are just a black hole in the dash at night. I don't know if they were EVER supposed to be backlit, but seeing as how they illuminated the rear defroster and power wagon window controls with a bulb that shown down on them from above, that seems like a (non)glaring oversight...

rocketraider

The HVAC control is supposed to be lit. Pull the woodgrain trim plate off and you can access the control.

Couple of screws under the ledge above the radio, then pull the lighter out and hook fingers in any of the openings and pull the panel toward you. It has friction fit retainers that should come out easy enough.

Once the trim panel is out of the way, there are I think three hexhead screws holding the HVAC control to the carrier. Remove those and you should be able to pull the control out far enough to remove/replace the lamp. It's at the right side of the control; look for a gray wire.

Clock, radio, and the other idiot lights in the center panel can also be accessed with the woodgrain panel off.

auto_editor

While we're at it, perhaps you'd know why that every time I plug something into the cigarette lighter (sorry, "12-volt power point") it lights the seatbelt warning lamp and "BONG BONG" sound. Wiggle the plug about and you can stop it from doing that, though most of the time it lights the check engine warning or some other idiot light instead.

Short (perhaps the wrong word) of running a separate wire to power the lighter is there something to check or do about what seems like shorting (right term this time) between the Driver Information Display and the plug?

[I need my iPod connectivity back!]

Thanks!

rocketraider

Go to the fuse block and probe both sides of all the constant 12V fuses. I was messing in the glovebox on mine a while back and managed to short the glovebox lamp to ground. It gave me some type of warning lamp, think it was "tailgate ajar". Checked the fuses and sure enough the one to courtesy lamps was blown. Replaced it and the warning light went away.

What happened was with that fuse out, everything else on that circuit was trying to ground thru it