Instrument Cluster..Need help..

[Klass-C]

For some reason my Instrument cluster just started acting up on me a couple days ago. The RPM guage on the right hand side of the cluster looks and sounds like it gets stuck... and the speed, gas, temp guage needles are not fuctioning as well. The RPM guage vibrates, and this is when I start the car. Then I would shut the car off and wait a hour or so, start the car and it would work fine..Has any one heard of this or experienced this problem.........I removed the cluster already to see if there were any shorts in the wires in the back of the cluster thinking one of the wires might be grounding...but no, all the wires seem to be fine..PLEASE...any suggestions....need help:( :( :(

[202280]

Yeah mine's been playing up too but I haven't bothered to look at it yet. I just have speedo and occational tacho problems which makes it abit more difficult to fault-find especially because it's intermittent!

I think that a good place to start with yours would be checking the ground as it is the common element of all the gauges.
I imagine that the ground would be a black wire at the end of the plug. So, with the cluster out and plugged in check if there is a voltage difference between that ground wire and the chassis. Make sure that wilst doing this that the gauges aren't working. If there is a voltage difference then you know that your ground is ucked.

Turn the car off and check the continuity with your meter between the plug ground wire and chssis with the panel disconnected. This will determine whether or not your fault is in the instrument panel or you have a faulty ground.
If your ground seems good (less than 10 ohms resistance) then pull the back off the panel and check for dry/cold (cracked) solder joints. Solder is usually 60/40 lead/tin so with all that lead it is not very strong. Over time with vibration, the joint will crack if the soldered component is not supported and if it contains a reasonable amount of weight or stress. A cracked solder joint will look like a hairline fracture around the pin/leg where the crystal lattice structure has been broken. If this is the case then remove the old solder and resolder with solder of course!

All that said it could be a voltage smoothing capacitor drying up. I am just speculating, there may be no caps in there at all!!! But that is a common fault with caps, Work intially and there become resistive and effectively short to ground. You can check them by measuring their resistance or capacitance if you have the right equipment.

If you have a workshop manual then this will be invaluable with problems. I don't imagine any of those cd/dvd style manuals you buy off ebay which seem good for a hundred different cars will tell you shit!

This is pretty much all out of my ass so I could be completely wrong but that is the path I would follow. You know it may be the computer or whatever feeds the panel, I haven't even looked at any circuit schematics or diagrams so I'm just taking a guess. (That was my disclaim BTW) ;)

Goodluck and let us all know how you go!

Cheers, Matt

[Klass-C]

Thanks 202280...I've been messing around with it, and it seems like the cluster it self has has met it's final days...With the plugs pluged into the cluster, tapping the back of the cluster where the RPM guage is located at, seems to resolve the problem but would come back to the same problem after turning the off the car and turning it back on. So after getting frusterated with the cluster tapping harder than usual behind where the RPM guage...The darn thing just started working fine. But even though, I should still be looking around for a replacement before the cluster goes out totally....Thanks again..

Regards,
C

[202280]

Yeah, sounds like a 'dry' joint. Open her up and carefully resolder the connections on the plug to the circuit board. Don't give up so easy, you should be able to fix this! It will save you money and will get some sort of satisfaction out of it! :)

Let me know if it fixes it. Looking forward to hearing from you!

Matt