Wiring gurus: dash gauges blowing fuse #18

[delta448]

No Tach, no fuel gauge, suggestions?

The fuel level gauge is sitting frozen at about 1/3 tank and the tachometer is defiantly taunting me at 0 no matter what pitch of exhaust note my right foot chooses to play. Speedometer and odometer work fine, engine coolant temp gauge works fine also. Car runs quite well, no change there at all.

The 10A fuse in slot 18 of the interior fuse block was blown, the FSM hints that this fuse is in line with some of the dash's gauges. I could only find a box of 20A ATL style fuses laying around, so that's what I tried. Blew 2 of the 20s as soon as I turned the key through run.

I was running out of daylight, so the dash trim, steering column trim, bag of trim screws and misc other dashboard bits are making themselves comfortable in the passenger seat overnight. I had some trouble deciding how to pull the instrument cluster out without removing the whole steering column, which in turn slowed my normal turtle speed down to mentally-challenged turtle speed. At least driving it to work tomorrow ought to be interesting.

Please advise.
Am I seriously looking at replacing the whole instrument panel here?

Car is a 94 ATX.

Thanks for the space.

 

[lowc]

time to start chasing wires my friend. i would start at the fuse box and work my way to the dash

 

[delta448]

Anyone have any tips on removing the instrument cluster?

 

[delta448]

After many hours of befuddlement on the situation I think I finally found the problem.

I finally realized I could lower the steering column by removing the 2 lower column braces and loosening the 4 bolts retaining the column to the dash structure. I only loosened these and avoided completely dropping the column. The lower horizontal dash brace is in foreground, lower column brace is the darker part in the background. Removing these allowed enough threads on the studs to lower the column out of the way enough to pull the cluster out.

And then...

 

[delta448]

...after removing the cluster, inspection led to finding that the printed circuit is deteriorating near the top...

Not sure if this is the entire problem, but I'm sure it's contributing.