90 C1500 Speedometer-Odometer Not Working FIX

[WeirdTim]

Had a few burnt out bulbs in my instrument cluster so I decided to install LED replacements. Fairly straightforward, being careful of course and they work really great. Huge difference.

A few days after doing the installation the speedometer, odometer and shift light stopped working. Kind of frustrating but figured it had to relate to what I touched installing the LED lights.

Today I pulled the instrument cluster out again and immediately found the issue. You can see in the below picture the two pins on the back of the cluster that are sitting lower than the rest. For whatever reasons they didn't align with the connector in the dash properly and were pushed back into the instrument cluster. This of course caused them not to make contact. Without looking at the pin-out to see what they truly are for, I took a small pair of needle nose pliers and gently pulled them back to the same level as the other pins. Reinstalled the instrument cluster and everything now works properly.

Here's a picture I took of said pins that were not making proper contact.

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Hope this helps others.

- Tim

 

[thunderstruck]

That might mean the solder joints behind the connector cracked or a copper trace lifted off a circuit board. If it keeps working fine just leave it alone but you might want to check it if you ever pull that cluster again.


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[WeirdTim]

All is good. I pulled the back and the board off to check and the pins were just pushed back. Solder joint is fine. Didn't want to put all that in the post as it may lead to confusion.

 

[someotherguy]

Pretty sure those pins in the 88-91 cluster "hoop" around in the housing before they solder to the board, allowing for potential deformation if they get jammed on install...without necessarily disturbing the solder joint.

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Richard

 

[WeirdTim]

You are correct Richard.