Dakota Dash questions
 

Couple of questions about Dash Bezel and wiring:

Bezel:
- All I need is the Bezel, no need for lens or backing plate right?
- Is the 75-77 dash bezel the same as the 73-74 bezel, What are the diffs if any?

Wiring:
- Where is everyone pulling the Turn, Park Brake, and hi/Lo beams from?

I was thinking I could pull each of those from the bulkhead in the engine bay and splice in by cutting, soldering, and heat shrinking each wire. Not sure if there is a better way AND I don't know which wire on the bulkhead runs each of those components. If someone has a better way and knows which wire/location runs what please let me know!

Re: Dakota Dash questions
 

The warning lamp wires are all in the Instrument cluster plug along with Ignition power & Dash Ground and the wires for the Temp, Oil, and Fuel senders. No need to go any further than that.

Grabbing the PDF of your year wiring diagram will answer a lot of questions.

Re: Dakota Dash questions
 

BTW, I have spent time with the following Wiring diagrams.
http://forum.73-87chevytrucks.com/sm...?topic=11766.0

Just not sure I'm as good as I think I am so I thought I'd better ask before I go cutting! For example I "think" the following bulkhead location gets me drive and pass turn signals.

14 is front drive turn
15 is front pass turn
OR
18 is rear drive turn
19 is rear pass turn

hi/lo might be trickier since I don't know what filament is hi or low but I do know it is either position 11 or 12 on the bulk head. Based on the cab wiring I believe it is 12 as as the hi/lo switch provides continuity to this position.

Re: Dakota Dash questions
 

yeah.... little too much fun with the family and friends yesterday. I see the instrument cluster diagram now and can find brake/turn/hi-lo...

Re: Dakota Dash questions
 

I don't think we're using bulkehad plug the same way... To avoid confusion...

The bulkhead plug is the big square plug in the firewall, or bulkhead, under the brake booster that most of the wiring in the engine bay uses to pass into the cab.

The instrument cluster plug is the one right behind the cluster that mates with the flexible printed circuit on the back of the cluster. No reason to run wires down to the bulkhead plug when every circuit you need is already run to the cluster...
I am assuming the Dakota panel has a speedometer cable hookup... If it's electronic you'll need to run one or two or... wires for that.

Each wire in the GM diagrams has the jacket-color, AWG or mm² wire-size, circuit-number (sometimes has a letter suffix), and sometimes the jacket type (SXL, TXL, GXL).

GM was using Crosslinked Polyethylene jacketed wire as early as the late 1960's. I usually use SXL for everything. It's the heaviest Crosslinked Polyethylene jacket for automotive wire so it's never too thin for the application.

You are correct on the circuit numbers.
Circuits 14 & 15 are the front turns and they also are used for the cluster arrows so you will find this circuit listed on the diagrams in the instrument cluster plug... GM didn't use the rear turn circuits because they double as BRAKE lamps.
Circuit 11 is the high beam indicator
Circuit 33 (2 wires in one connector) is your BRAKE lamp... Parking and :eek:

If you download the 79, 80, 83, & 84 diagrams they have a half-dozen to a dozen or so standard A4 (8.5"x11") pages with tables of circuit numbers in the leading pages of the wiring diagrams. GM seemed to be fairly consistent across the 73-91 years and just added more three digit circuit numbers to later year diagrams to handle additional new circuits. This means they kept the old circuit number functions the same across the years. With that in mind these tables should be fairly useful for deciphering circuit number functions for every year.
I'd snag the 84 diagrams and print out those circuit tables.

Re: Dakota Dash questions
 

Thanks for the help, I tested the interior harness and have what I nee to wire up the new dash properly.