The oil pressure and water temp gauges aren't hooked up due to aftermarket gauges having been installed at some point in the car's past. The alternator gauge moves when something electrical is turned on like the headlights. Turn signals, radio, heater blower all work. The fuel gauge I was told by the previous owner doesn't work but if that could be a byproduct of the instrument lights not working then it may work if I can solve the light problem.

that's what I would do, jump fire to the specific female brass cavity in the black bakelite headlight switch "bulkhead" & work downstream for the open.

so amp gauge is its own wiring.

your dash circit board may just not have power to it at all.
or totally bad grounds on it.

fuel and temp do go through the VR in the dash, and that is a seperate power source. but if the sending units aren't hooked up, you can't nail down if it is power or ground.

backfeeding the lights will tell if it is ground or not.

440mopar, I was looking up dash light problem threads and came across yours. Just wondered if you ever found out what the problem was as I am experiencing a similar problem.

No, I didn't. I checked everything with the exception of pulling the cluster out. Switch works, fuse is good, all bulbs are good, manually grounded the gauge cluster and switch. Nothing. I did notice that the light on the gear indicator on the column doesn't work either. Since it and the radio light don't work and they are not actually part of the gauge cluster lighting I don't know what else to look for.

Check the voltage limiter on the back of the instrument cluster. IIRC, the lights won't work if it is bad.

I'm not familiar with that part. Do you have a pic of what it looks like?

It is the rectangular metal cannister next to the thing that looks like a condenser in the photo. It has three prongs and plugs into the circuit board.

Thanks for the pic. I will take a look at it this weekend. I'm not an electrical guru so when I pull it off, how do I go about testing it?

if all components check good, and everything is properly grounded, the only thing it can be is the circuit is NOT getting power. this means you need to check the wiring closely. even if nothing apparent jumps out [like a blown fuse, or broken wire], you need to confirm if power [12v] is reaching the switch, then leaving the switch to the component[s]. after that, you need to confirm the component[s] is[are] receiving 12v. you may need to run a jumper wire or two, to confirm this. these cars have a very basic system, but electrical issues can be VERY frustrating to solve at times. i REALLY enjoy fixing hack "fixes". []