I drive a 1993 Mazda 323 and wanted to replace the existing instrument cluster to have a tach because it my car has manual transmission and I wanted to know at what rpm I was actually shifting. I found an instrument cluster with the tach on another Mazda 323 at a dismantler in town. This car was the same year just had some more features / upgrades than my car.

It was installed successfully and all the gauges and lights work properly except the fuel is always showing full now. We tried disconnecting the battery to see if that would reset things but it doesn't seem to be make a difference.

Is there anything else I should look at or try??? Any help would be appreciated!!

 

Was the fuel gage working properly with the previous cluster? If it was you might have a bad gage in the new unit.

 

That is a good question - and yes it was working properly in the previous one. The new unit had the fuel showing 1/2 full when I removed it, but when we installed it into my car the fuel reading moved all the way to full and does not change. This leads me to think that the fuel gage was fine before and that the issue has to do with the install or some step involving a reset. Do you have any ideas or thoughts on what else I can try?

 

I have done this same swap on a previous 323 i had with no problems. The fuel gages use the same values to determine fuel level on either one. The car is wired the same regardless of whether it has a tach or not. I would say swap out just the fuel gages over, but if I remember they are bigger on the non-tach cluster.

 

OK one more question - did you have to remove the steering wheel? If so was this difficult?

 

I did not have to remove the steering wheel. I took the trim around the cluster off and angled it out of the dash. If you need to get more room you can lower the steering column. That would be much easier. It has 4 nuts on the support bracket and it will come down out of the way. You might have to remove the plastic trim right under the column.

 

Is there anything I should watch out for if I drop those four bolts (i.e. will anything be more difficult to put back)? Thanks again for all your help!

 

Just make sure you dont stretch the wiring harness, but it should be long enough. If you decide to drop the column it is designed this way to be easy.

 

Thank you that is very helpful. Since I did my first post I drove about 600 km and the fuel gauge gradually decreased to read 1/2 full. It's still not accurate but aleast the needle moved. I will let you know how things turn out.