Hi John - that is peculiar.
I can't say for sure if this is the case with your particular truck, but many newer vehicles's dash clusters are an integral part of the complex computer systems in newer vehicles. So much so, that for people who build hot-rods and killer off-road trucks, MUST keep their original dashboard (even if they leave it hooked up and just mount it inside the glovebox or something) as the vehicle won't even start or run without it. The days of ripping out an instrument cluster and replacing them with cool gauges are gone - unfortunately.
Anyhow, I suspect that the replacement of the cluster may have been botched in some way, OR it wasn't a direct match from the donor truck that it came from (or, if it was new from the dealer, then it wasn't right).
It could be a myriad of other problems, but it's hard to diagnose this one from here - if you catch my drift.
The only other thought is to try and pull some error codes from your trucks computer like this:
1) Pull the battery / reset the computer. Start the engine and pull the codes
2) Drive the truck for 20 minutes and pull the codes again - see if anything else pops up
3) Let the truck sit and completely cool down, then pull the codes with the engine off, but key in the run position
4) Start the truck and pull the codes one more time
This may be a bit of overkill, but I'm curious to see if you get some different readings between these 4 conditions. It might lead you down the right path.
Rick |