66-67 Dodge Charger Source Guide

In order to re-attach a contact wire to the EL plate you need to go to an electronics store and buy some electric conducting epoxy glue. Not cheap, about 20 to 25 bucks a tube.

Clean the area when it is to be attached but dont scrape through the electroluminescent coating. then clean the el coating with something like brake cleaner, lighter fulid or something like that.

Wipe it off with paper towel and then mix up the el glue, apply it and place the conducting wire into it and somehow hold the wire in place (clothes pin?) until the glue dries. Wait at least 24 hours before using it.

I have done this many times and always had them work afterwards.

I have bench tested my EL by removing the power pack from the car, and using a small 12v/3Amp power supply and some jumper wires, I hook up the assembled dash cluster to the power pack on my kitchen table. Connect the power supply to the power pack, Positive to the orange wire, Negative to the mounting base. Connect the white cluster EL wire to the white PP output wire. Ground the cluster to the negative side of the power supply. Turn on the 12v supply.

If the lights don't work, you can dis-assemble the cluster and test each gauge seperately to determine which one is shorting the power pack. If your cluster works on the bench, you will need to check the radio and the heater-A/C controls, as well as the auto trans shift indicator. These are all EL devices and any one of them can kill your dash lights. Remember to ground each component to the power pack/power supply when you hook things up. I have found this to be very beneficial, even to the point of identifying a bad needle which was shorting the whole circuit.

The dash needs to be grounded as well as the Power Pack so make sure of that first your Power pack seems fine at first sight. If it still deliver 240 Volts after 30 minutes then it’s fine.

For each gauge, you have 2 wires. 1 for the gauge face and the other for the needle I would disconnect all of those Next make sure that there is power to the dash connector side of the white wire not the power pack side if that works then start by the alternator gauge first Disconnect the + from the battery, connect the needle wire, reconnect the + from battery

If the needle illuminates go to the next step Disconnect + from Battery, Connect Gauge plate wire, reconnect + from Battery See if it works and so on.

If neither works, Disconnect those 2 wires and try another gauge If the second Gauge doesn’t work either, there is probably a failure in the wire somewhere from the female connector outside the dash (Red female Connector) to the inside.

If the first gauge does illuminate, leave that gauge connected and go to the next gauge until you find the gauge that initiate the short. You’ll see because as soon as you reconnect the + from the Battery, all the gauges will stop working.

The particularity of our system is that if 1 of either the gauge or the needle creates a short, the entire system will stop and it goes as well for the transmission El System. If everything works but all stops when in the car check the EL system for the transmission and the radio.