when I purchased my 96 miata the cluster didnt work completely. the lights didnt work and only the gas guage worked and the speedo. rpm and temp guage didnt work. I plugged in a white plug under the passenger side dash and now the temp guage works and so does rpm. but now the lights are real dim and when I turn the dimmer all the way up there real dim and the rpm stops working. but when i turn it down rpm works fine. also now my gas guage is reading more then what it had before i did all this and temp guage is reading above half and sometimes all the way when the car is cold. Any idea what this could be? any help would be appreciated

 

Perhaps some faulty wiring for the meters that didn't work and that is why the previous owner unplugged that connector. It supplies signal for the coolant temp, oil pressure, and tach.

Do your other meters work normally with the dimmer turned down? Maybe take the dimmer out and see if it is failing or no good via an ohm tester.

 

thanks for the help. after taking dash out and putting heat components back in i realized the previous owner didnt put all the grounds back on when he did the wire tuck. problem solved

 

Check grounds.

*edit* should of read the whole thread...