Instrument Cluster Issues

[bimmermanic]

Hey gang,
I have a problem and I hope y'all can offer some help. I bought an e36 318 with a blow engine and I did an engine swap to it. I can seem to get the speedo to work tho. The sender from the diff is working and sending a signal, but the instrument cluster does'nt seem to work. Can anybody explain how the signal travels from the speedo sender to the instrument cluster. In fact I cant get any info on the cluster to work at all. Tach, fuel, Temp and Speedo dont work. I am able to get ignition lights CEL and Alt. I ripped out the engine ecu so I hope that the engine ecu doesnt have any leaning on this.
Thanks in advance.

[lhlan]

I have a problem that I can share: the instrument cluster might have failed. Mine did, eventhough I have a perfect working engine.

Same symptom as yours: nothing with a needle is working, just the light on and then off.

So, please check the instrument cluster first, or you need to replace it. I am looking for replacement, too.

Anyone here ever changes an instrument cluster?

[pirretbmw3series]

I just changed my instrument cluster today and it is very easy. I followed directions off this site to do so. I am not sure were you will find it but have a look. I did have to take my steering wheel off at one stage because it was becoming a squeeze as I had to take out the panel a few times adjusting things.

[pjloco]

Hello Guys, I am new to this site. Well I have a 328 1998, and the instrument cluster was going insane every once in a while, the thing that happened most frequently is that I would be driving on the highway and all of the sudden the speedometers' needle would die, so I would not know the speed I was driving, this could happen for seconds or minutes (the longest was 25 minutes) Obviously as a DIY kind of guy that I am, I searched all over the internet and BMW shop, what could be the problem, I tried everything you can imagine I even took the car to the dealers shop 5 times in hopes that they would fix the job, but nothing they always told me that the sensors were in excellent condition, the instrument cluster is fine and all... so it was a mystery until this morning that I decided to check myself what was going on, and I found the problem, it turns out the speedometers' electromagnetic drive is defective, so I thought about buying a new dashboard and went again to the dealer and after I heard the price of it and came out of my mini-coma (inducted by the price) I decided that this guys have already ripped me off for all the times that I took the car to the shop and told me that it was "fine", so no more money for them.
Well this brings up to my questions, does anyone know what are the 4 connectors on the back of the speedometers' electromagnetic drive? I Know one of them is ground, the other is the power and the third is the speed signal coming from the differential, but what is the 4th??? also do you know what is the voltage of this things? I am trying to look for less expensive replacement parts that I can fit into the dashboard. Also I am bidding on a used instrument cluster on EBAY in case this fails. But anyway I would like to know what are this connectors for and what is the voltage of them

THanks in advance for your help
pjloco