Short n sweet, but this Public Service annoucnement may save you a trip on a tow truck.

Decided to gut my interior to do black suede, also took off steering wheel gauge cluster to install my ATI gauge pods and to get the dash pieces out for suede.. voila, its now late Sunday night.. time fer sleep..

Wake up for work, car fires up fine, Ill drive w out the gauges to work...
Made it 12 miles, can started to cut out from out of the blue.. pulled off the fwy, car limps, sputters, and dies.. click click click when i turn the key.. battery is toast.. which means the alternator is toast. Or at least a bad belt.

Tow car 30 miles to Intense... only place i know of that can get my car on a lift.

Intense plugs gauge cluster in, all is back to normal.


Not sure how or why, but Im told theres something in the voltage regulator circuit that requires that thing to be plugged in.

Makes sense.. dont drive your car half disassembled, but hey, thats just part of DIY work.

 

right on bro, cool story

 

i didn't have that happen but i had mine unplugged for about 2 months then came back and plugged it all in and it made that clicking noise. i figured battery was dead jumped it and have had no problems

 

but really though that doesn't surprise me

 

wrongforumbro...maybe...

 

indeed a toss up.. was it an alternator problem? In the end no..

Was it a question of being the guy who unplugs things inside the car and then drives around? My sources say yes.

Hence, I chose interior forum to warn children of my tale.

I even included what will undoubtedly be the most common reply IN the original title. ha.

 

Haha cool story bro!

 

lesson learned. now that's a cool story bra!

 

damn you!

 

just want to add that if you blew a fuse that have to do with the center console gauges, then you will have the same result.

 

true.. plugged it all back in and all works fine now.. so weird.

 

Bmccann, although I know very little about the workings of cars, I do know the source of your self-inflicted troubles. There is a charge system idiot light in the gauge cluster and it is part of the circuit that provides power from the ignition switch to the field coil in the alternator. (Energizes the electromagnet inside the alt to create charging).

If you are going to change out your gauge cluster for custom gauge pods, it’s easy to replicate this indicator light circuit with a small bit of custom wiring.

I probably would have trouble even finding the alternator in my Z. But my dad was in the business of custom fabricating stuff like this, so I remember the odd thing or two.

 

Hmmmm