1993 3ltr Surf - Dash Rev needle/water temp flicking about, windows up & down slow

[mhfbishop]

Hi guys (and butch gals if you're driving a Surf!),
My Surf has, all of a sudden, started going haywire on the electrics. Symptoms are:-
Rev counter needle shows much higher revs whilst temp gauge needle shows higher temp. At the same occurrence, the window winder motors run very slowly & cause an even higher rev needle exaggeration/temp gauge reading.
Autobox does lumpy gearchanges at transition speeds/torques (OK gearchanges at hard & defining speeds/torques).
I do hear a click (relay click?) in the passenger LH kick panel but dont think its coming from inside the ECU. Is there anything I should be checking out regarding this click? Batteries are both good/nearly new.
Sometimes the faults aren't there, usually at a standstill/tickover but a couple of secs of driving and all starts off again.
Cheers
Mike

[BUSHWHACKER]

Loose or broken earth strap?
Loose/corroded/dirty terminals on the battery/ies?
Alternator's voltage regulator faulty?
Loose, live wire in the engine compartment somewhere thats shorting to the engine/body?

[mhfbishop]

Problem found & solved

Thanks Bushwhacker for pointing me in the right direction and just to help anyone else whose Surf gets these symptoms, even though the solution is trival.........
My thoughts of a dashboard short/ECU playing up/££££££'s going out my account in Sparky bills/parts were unecessary!
I did start stripping the glove box out to get where the "click" was coming from, pulled relays & fuses but all OK, then started into the engine bay, battery connections were fine, big earths were fine but then discovered (working at night by torchlight here) that the small 5mm dia secondary earth lead from the drivers side battery had broken through its connector at the tucked away engine bay point.....but the lead was way too short to reach the broken connector on the bodywork??!
I couldn't believe it but the battery, even though well clamped, must have been creeping over months towards the engine (probably helped due to my hard cornering & the crap roads in Somerset), This put the lead eventually in tension and hence the spade end of the cable then work hardened and finally broke.
It seemed odd that a secondary earth could make so much go haywire on the electrics?! Still, all I had to do was make a bodge spade end from the cable itself and rebolt to the body & truck is back to its exceptional normal self.....