does anybody know how to find out wat the milage on the car is?
i have an 89 gxe and half of my digital dash crapped out before i bought the car so i never knew how many miles it has on it.
thanks

 

you may try to pull it out, and check for broken solder joints. maybe fixing them will bring up the current mileage, but it's also possible the speedo joint broke, so it would not be accurate.

 

search for digital dash distplay fix or something like that... the problem with the digi dash is usually just the backlight goes out due to failed solder connections on the power resistors-- so everything else works, you just can't see it.

try searching for that fix and it should get you going.

 

oh **** man. i appreciate it bro. givin me new hope on my digital dash

 

ive been lookin for more info on fixing the dash but all i read was sum info on the fact that you had to resolder connections and stuff. but i kinda wanna make sure i know exacly which connectors to solder. somebody mentioned something about the hot pins on the tach/speedo side. i was hoping for a more detailed explination of where theyre at.

 

tbh, there is probably no "set" points to check. check 'em all.
arrows point to joints that need solder, others don't


more info here. not a digi-dash (heck not even Nissan), but it's the gist of it:
http://www.turbobricks.org/maint.php?content=art0031

 

the quickest and easiest way is get a snap on scanner and the milage will be in the pcm and with a scanner u can retrieve it

 

erm.... I don't know anyone with a scanner, I can't afford a $4000 tool(cheapest scanner I found on snap-on's site) . it would be quicker and easier for me to rip the entire dash out, and re-solder every connection, all while standing on my head, than your suggestion. and, while not practical at all, it is still more practical than your suggestion. maybe a few have access to that magical scanner, but most of us don't.

 

i appreciate that link man. now i know wat to look for. im gonna try and scrape up a few bucks for sum solder and ill try and get on this.

 

Yeah. you just go and try that on an OBD-I car with no ECU and BCM that keep track of mileage. I bet that scanned does real well talking to a gear-driven display unit.

 

that's what happened on my ex roommate's 87 z31 with digital dash. there was a power supply box separate from the cluster itself, and the temp gauge rarely worked and the rest of the gauges randomly crapped out. resoldered the joints where the connector met the pcb and voila, perfection.

 

see i dont know where the pcb or any of that stuff is.. lol.
i was hoping i could get a better description. or a pic or a diagram. lol

 

http://www.courtesyparts.com/images/j30/j30_248-2.gif

can anybody tell me using this pic where the general area of these Power Resistors is?
i rele need help on this one. thanks

 

this is the box on the back of the cluster.. i opened it up but i dont know where to look for broken solders.

 

bump?

 

Did you think I would charge you to fix it with information that is readily available? Come on man, I'm not that shady

There's 2 possibilities, 1 is that your power supply is bad and the control unit or the display board are not working at all. That's a pain in the *** to fix and track down, can be a number of components that are bad from transistors, to the hard as hell to find transformers. 2 is that your display board is bad and from what I remember you said the fuel/temp display works. That's good news, it means the display board is the problem and the control unit is still powering up properly and recording the mileage.

First step is to take that control unit, put it back together before you zap it with static electricity rendering the entire thing inoperable. Now take the display board and solder the hot and ground pins on the speedo/tach display (it was me who you quoted) they are the furthest pins on each corner of the display. Do not break the evacuation tube or any other part of the VFD or you're screwed, they're glass displays under a vacuum. Shouldn't be a problem, just be careful.

 

Cold solder failures are common in many cars. I've got a Porsche 944 and when the computer went out, I took it apart and "corrected" many of the cold solders myself.

Bought a new (used) computer shortly after, learned I need a lot more practice with the soldering gun.......

 

My dash did not light up either, but when I warmed up the capacitor in red it started working (I made a out of the car harness with +12v to check the dash while inside).
Replaced it and now it lights up every time.

Of course, as Hectic says, it can be alot of things..

I paid under 1$ for the capacitor, but it was not the easiest thing to replace, hard to get to the solder points.

 

so just to clarify hectic.

 

sorry for the ****y pics guys. lol

 

Yep that's them. Do all 4 corners. There's about 3 pins on each corner that are fused together, you'll see what I mean.

 

okay. so i resoder all three or four pins on each corner. got it
okay. umm. tho top dosent have those fused pins..
how do i deal with that?

 

Well just make extra sure not to bridge the solder if they're separate pins. I guess my memory isn't perfect. might just be the bottom corners that have multiple pins fused together.

 

yeah top ones are separate. but okay will do man
thank you so much for the info

 

so.. i tried and i failed.. well. i gave up.. i dont feel like ****ing anything up so i just let it be.. i dont think i had the right equipment to do this or even if soldering those pins would have fixed it.. eather way. im gonna wait till i get this job in a few weeks and have hectic do it.

 

Gotta have a decent soldering iron to get to them when they're that small. the large tips that come on the cheap RatShack soldering irons don't work too well.
(I work on stuff daily that's about 1/10 the size of that. I have about 9 different tips for our soldering iron here at work for various tasks.)