What years will Instrument clusters work for an 86 with auto trans and a/c?

Barrett-FL said:

Now I’m even more confused!? The title shows an 86 and matches the VIN number on the dash…are you suggesting the steering column has been replaced with an 83 or older model?

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Unfortunately, looking at that picture, you have a hodge podge truck. '86 would have the headlight switch slightly further up than where it is with no switch above it. There would be a multifunction turn signal switch that has the wiper controls on it as well as the cruise button (if so equipped). You do have the later column in your truck, the big square on the side with the missing turn signal lever is the giveaway. An '83-down column would be smooth/round there. You also have a dimmer switch on the floor, which went away after '83. I think you have an '81-83 truck that's been re-VIN'd. Or an '86 that someone swapped an '81-83 cab onto. Only way to know for sure is to lift the cab up enough to check the VIN on the top of the frame rail and also take the dash pad off and look at the VIN plate and it's rivets. The manufacturers use a specific type of rivet for that VIN plate and most people just use regular pop rivets when swapping VINs.

Here is an '83 interior. It has the wiper controls above the headlight switch, the headlight switch is lower in the dash and has the floor mounted dimmer switch.




Here's my '85 interior, which would be the same for '84-91. You can see the multifunction turn signal lever and lack of floor mounted dimmer switch. You can also see how the headlight switch moved up in the dash

Here’s the pic of the VIN tag at the left dash area. Rivets look to be OEM.

It appears the truck may be a hodge-podge of parts of which I will need to resolve to make it right.

It is for sale or trade if anyone’s interested.

Here are pics of the instrument cluster.

Thanks for any info!

Barrett-FL said:

Here’s the pic of the VIN tag at the left dash area. Rivets look to be OEM.

It appears the truck may be a hodge-podge of parts of which I will need to resolve to make it right.

It is for sale or trade if anyone’s interested.

Click to expand...

The OE style rivets can be bought if you know where to look, so that's not a 100% either. The only way you'll really know for sure is to take off the dash bezel to see if the wiper control and headlight knob mounting holes/areas look OE or have been cut in there. If they look OE, my next step would be to remove the dash pad. It's also possible that someone cut out a section of the '86 metal dash a couple inches outside of the VIN plate and welded it into this one. That's pretty common too and *technically* gets around the messing with the VIN legal issues, especially because it's hidden by the dash pad so 99.99% of people wouldn't think twice to check it. I doubt they swapped the whole metal dash structure in because that welds in the pinch weld of the windshield. Unless someone cut it all the way across and welded it into the '86 cab.

Unfortunately, this is a big can of worms that may be very difficult to solve or fix. A buddy of mine had an '83 4x4 a few years ago that had had an '86 cab swapped on it. They had the '81-83 wiper controls and headlight switch location very crudely cut into the dash. You couldn't tell with the gauge bezel on but it looked terrible underneath. Unfortunately, that's super common with these trucks, swapping parts and pieces just to get them driveable back when they were all $500 trucks.

Thanks for your response.

I have several projects and I may reduce them… starting with this truck.