Hi forum.. good news.. New Skreem (from needswings, thx Rob), and 40 mins fiddling with the dash and instrument cluster.. (twice) .. and the car is running again.
The bad news.. the fuel gauge is no-op now.. and I took out the cluster again, to look for a bent pin and to make sure I got all the connectors right.. looked good to my eye.. Darn it.

Also, from sitting since Nov, the brakes are mushy.. and driving it 3 miles thru town didnt even rub the rust off the rotors .. hmmm. On any other ABS car I dont need to bleed the brakes if they start out mushy.. any comments here? thanks