Whatever you do, don't look at the Dakota Digital VHX gauges. You'll wonder how you ever lived without em.
I'm wondering how I can afford them! LOL they do look nice, though. Maybe someday. I just have a few kinks I need to work out under the hood before I can start dropping that kind of coin on a gauge cluster. The only reason I'm even messing with these clusters and contemplating swapping some stuff out is because I got them for free when I bought my Blazer for the huge sum of $1,500. I just spent more than the purchase price of the whole car fixing a bunch of stuff in the front end and the suspension.... Ugh.....
Anyway, I have been doing some research on my later model gauge cluster and I believe it is from 1988 or 1989. Apparently GM made them with the mechanical speedometer w/trip meter for a brief time before going electrical in 1990. I don't even know if I am going to use that thing now anyway because I just got the gauge cluster in there now working properly. Replaced the oil pressure sending unit and the temperature gauge sending unit and now every gauge I got works properly - except for the fuel gauge it only works half ass but I think it might need a new sending unit, too. After I replaced the sending units it seemed like it took both gauges a little while to "reset" or something, but now they both appear to be working. Temp is at about 140* and oil pressure idles around 40-45 and stays at about 50 when I'm driving.
I don't know if I am going to put this clock into my current gauge cluster or the 1988 one here in this thread. I might also get one of those big tachometers to replace the gas gauge and one of those small fuel gauges that fit where the clock would go. I'm gonna end up with a spare, functioning gauge cluster for parts or to sell, either way.