Gauges, reverse lights and the stereo (SOLVED!)

[HANDM]

First the gauges....upon first fire up I had a reading of 40 at the oil pressure gauge, shut it off, restarted and no more oil pressure, all gauges dead.

Pulled the limiter and it tests good , fluctuating from 5 down to 1.5 and back, scraped all dash contact points, re-installed cluster (getting pretty fast at it now) fired it up and still nothing. I tested all the gauges with a mostly dead 9 volt battery before "restoring" them so I know that they work.
Any thoughts?

Now for the reverse light strangeness.....

Every time I put the car into reverse, the reverse lights won't light up and the stereo quits untill I take it out, what's weird about the stereo is that it will do it no matter where I have the main power drawn from except when I ran a direct line from the battery.

I've narrowed it down to either the harness or the NSS by removing the connection at the switch or at the bulkhead connector.
The NSS is operating properly, the lamps and housings test good and are properly grounded.
The Switch appears to be new (from when I had the tranny rebuilt years ago) and the harness is in good shape except for a butt splice repair someone before me did but looked to be solid with no signs of corrosion or shorts. It was re wrapped in it's original harness wrap before reinstallation, I cleaned all connections with no effect.

I plan on yanking it again and running power through each wire to see if something is up there, other than that, I'm at a loss

Do you think it's the switch, does the harness has a bad spot, or is it an ever present ground issue?
Is there any way to run power directly through the switch connections to try and at least light the reverse lights for an operational test?

Thanks guys!

[nascarxx29]

When the reverse lights are on they bright.They might need to be better grounded.
And that could be why the radio acts up in reverse like its feeding back
The tranny plug has 3  pins N safety in the middle reverse light source on one end.
And other end is 12 volts.
With trans switch plug removed jumper wire the 2 end wire terminals .Should give you reverse lights..

[HANDM]

Thanks I'll try that.....Jumping the prongs that is 
I ran power through the harness and found all wires conduct properly

[nascarxx29]

Saw this similar post
http://www.dodgecharger.com/forum/index.php/topic,33135.0.html

[HANDM]

This thing is really big mystery to me........I ran the jumper wire across the end terminals of the NSS plug, no lights and stereo goes off.......

Unplugged the rear harness and ran power directly to the reverse light terminal and they light up like the fourth of july......

I just don't get it, everything else has been annoying to say the least but this is just strange 

[HANDM]

After yanking the gauge cluster for the umpteenth time, I determined that all gauges were getting power through the limiter, checked the 12 volt feed at the pin connector and found only 2 volts.

Proceeded to move some wires around and uncovered the infamous "welded splice" consisting of three or four (doan remember just now) and a pink all melted and corroded beyond all belief.

Cut and spliceed them all up and BINGO! Temp and oil gauges are now working (fuel, I suspect needs a seperate extra ground)

Reverse lights work and stereo no longer shuts off while in reverse   

[nascarxx29]

  Gas gauge has a strap ground from sender to fuel line .But a piece of wire and hose clamps or zip ties will work .To test gauge remove blue sender wire from tank .Ground it turn key to on it should rise and peg at full .And with key off fall back to empty

http://www.dodgecharger.com/forum/index.php/topic,38968.msg429496/topicseen.html#msg429496

[HANDM]

Tested in the exact manner, works as it should.....gonna hook an extra ground up and see what I can see