Ddi the cold kill my instrument cluster?

1999 F-250 diesel.

While I understand that many of you see much colder temps with regularity, it was probably the coldest this truck has ever seen- perhaps 10*F. I was in the mountains, perhaps 3000 ft elevation (I live at 200').

The truck started fine, though I noticed it was kind of spitting and kicking when it started (normal for my diesel in the cold).

I didn't really look at the gauges until after I started driving away.

The entire instrument cluster was dead. Speedo, tach, all gauges (fuel, temp, alt, and oil), all idiot lights (even the seatbelt light). They simply had no reading whatsoever.

Additionally, after I noticed this, the accelerator was unresponsive (though it had already worked once or twice).

After a couple of minutes of idling, and a couple minutes of driving, they just started working again. Been working for a week since with no problems, but it has never been that cold again (and I've been out of the mountains).

Any idea what could have caused this?

Check dash grounds. IIRC this is what happens before the infamous dash fire starts.

10F? That's warm!

been -6 in the morning here

I had a similar problem with our '99 Windstar. Happened every time it was cold(15 or colder). After the dealer couldn't/wouldn't fix it, I got all of our money back under N.Y. lemon law. Last Ford ever bought and problem solved.

I can't specifically help but my 83 RX-7's tach would not work when it was really cold,and as the car warmed up the tach would start to work again. I think it had something to do with a wax substance in the tach somewhere that didn't like the cold. I have not noticed this in my 78 RX-7,but then again it never sees use during the cold months,and the tach is a bit different in the series 1 cars.

I doubt I'll be getting any satisfaction from any lemon law- I've got over 380,000 miles on this puppy!

John Brown wrote: Check dash grounds. IIRC this is what happens before the infamous dash fire starts.

What infamous dash fire would that be???

Dunno about Ferds, but Durangos and certain Ram pickups would light the back of the instrument cluster on fire.

I'm betting there is a very large difference between Fords and Dodges.

The only thing I generally light up is the tires.

(Yep, in a 380K 7000 lb. diesel!)

Could be that the printed circuit loses connection at low temps and them reconnects when things warm up.

I have a friend with a late model Pontiac Bonneville who has the same problem when it gets down around 0 degrees. The gauges stop working until it warms up.

My old shelby charger did that too, im pretty sure is was an issue with the gauge cluster (they are rather poorly made).