1992 ford ranger 3 litre, automatic, 2WD. 180,000 Kms. A real clean truck, well maintained. Turn key to "on position" and tachometer registers 500 RPM. Turn engine on and Tachometer registers 3500 RPM, never lower. Engine idle is lopey and almost stalling then goes to about 1500 RPM and then almost dies again.

SOURCE: 1992 ford ranger 3.0

i was once pulling a trailer with a ranger when it suddenly lost power and the engine died. turns out the problem was with the fuel shut off inertia switch. the switch is supposed to activate in case of accident. on my model the inertia switch is located in the passenger side under the glove box. dont know where yours is located. once you find it, just push the button and see if it resets. good luck.

SOURCE: Corolla 2002 tachometer back light

Get a GOOD small Phillips screwdriver and remove the plastic screw in the middle of the meter hood sub assembly. You may have to hold the outer plastic ring of the screw to keep it from spinning. Sometimes they are hard to get out,(try not to push up on the screwdriver and once it starts to come out you should be able to pull it the rest of the way). See pic circled in red.

Carefully pry away between the sub assembly and the upper dash with a flathead screwdriver wrapped in masking tape. Once it is movable lower the steering wheel all the way down and pull the sub assembly out.
Remove the Phillips head screw on the top of the meter combination assembly. At the bottom of the assembly you will find two little metal tabs, push each one back gently one at a time while moving the meter out. Disconnect the two plugs at the top of the assembly. Once removed I would replace all the lights. Why do this again?

SOURCE: it idles rough at 500-600rpm.changed out both O2

Check you (IAC) Idle Air control valve.

SOURCE: TACHOMETER WORKS INTERMITTENT

Do you have engine code showing by chance? It's possible the crank sensor is bad or the connection to the ecm or pcm to the instrument cluster circuit board needs a look. If you need schematics check out www.promanuals.net they specialize in Dodge Ram service manuals.

SOURCE: Car: Nissan Maxima SE 1997 tachometer broken

the dash voltage egulator probably went bad. First,check the battery & make sure you have 12 volts,not running. Check it again running & you should see about 14.5 volts. If that's good,I'd replace the guage assembly.