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2008 Odometer Repair

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    2008 Odometer Repair

    Seems theres a bit of a dearth of information when it comes to 2006-2011 dim/flickering/dead odometer repair aside from 'send it away'. Yeah. Right. Sure. As if. Not gonna happen. I've had a soldering iron long before I could even drive, I make my paycheck using a soldering iron, so it would be a rather sad state of affairs if the repairer sent something away to get repaired.

    Like most Ford cluster repair information you will find, the common theme is bad solder joints. That was no different for mine. What is different is that the 06+ cvgm cluster looks nothing like the common mustang/f150 clusters you find in the writeups. If anything, the Freestar is the closest match in construction and one writeup tipped me off to pay attention to the surface mount components under the odometer. Something I would have probably ignored otherwise just out of sheer laziness.

    1.The blank odometer is what quickly came to trouble my cluster. Haven't even driven the car for a full oil change interval yet and the odo started flickering, multiple levels of brightness digit to digit soon followed, and then nearly fully dim almost all the time.

    2.Backside of the cluster. Plastic sneeze shield still in place.

    3.Guage needles removed, starting to free the board from the housing.

    4.Front side.

    5.Odometer closer up, arrows pointing to big resistors and surface mount components also "hidden" underneath that should be touched up. Patience and your magnifier of choice will make this easier.

    6.Closerer up. Viewers will note that the legs of the odometer are essentially hanging in free air with only the backside solder pads anchoring it. No wonder these things go, bit of vibration under the best of circumstances will eventually crack anything mounted like this. Ever since everything went to being designed on a computer screen a lot of common sense best-practices have fallen by the wayside.

    7.Cluster Connector. You'll want to inspect this closely, it doesn't get much stress, but having operated a wave solderer in the past, theres a few things to know when you have large areas of solder, namely, a cooling action if the wave solder ain't perfectly setup, and with that, poor solder joints. If it is very badly setup, you can tell what direction the baord traveled through the wave solderer. I had a crack on the top left pin, and pin number 3. Retouched all corners and anything that looked suspect.

    8.Main odo pins that we are concerned with here. Hit the legs of the 1/2watt resistors with some heat, don't be afraid, and don't use no shity 35watt soldering iron. That is for people who don't know how to solder and just want to be able to say they own a soldering iron. 75watts or 100watts. Even more important with todays multi-layered boards, too low a wattage means all the copper sucks the heat away from your iron and you are just making solder drops at best. And tin your tips damnit. And since you are this far into it, look over the entire board and touch up if necessary. Did not find anything else on mine that was questionable.

    9.After putting everything together, seems I did move things while trying not to. Bit of driving and adjusting will soon get that back to where it should be.

    Tip: Don't fully assembly the dash when you are done, and leave the clear lens off the cluster. Go drive with a scan tool and verify where the needles are pointing. Your OBD scanner live data will give you vehicle speed, fuel guage percentage, temperature, and naturally, engine rpm to help you get things setup.

    Tip: Don't put things back together after the first test drive/key cycle either. Seems the guage cluster needs a couple drive cycles to settle back into its proper location if you inadvertantly moved the motor shafts at some point. Unlike many vehicles, you will notice that the cvgm does not do a needle sweep when turning on the key.

    10.A few more adjustments... and things are back to reflecting reality. And thats how you save your self a C-note, or two C-notes if you are a Canuck.

    Finish assembling and enjoy seeing an evenly lit odometer.
    Don't worry about the trip meter button, its just a long plastic rod that pushes on a surface mounted switch. Can't mess it up as it just drops through a hole in the cluster housing.

    By comparison, getting this cluster out is a lot easier than getting a box cluster out. Kinda nice not having to have a blindly grope at a speedo cable barely long enough to give you enough slack to get your hand behind it.

    Alex.
    Attached Files

    #2
    Stickied!

    and wow... reminds me of an old VCR display board I tore apart.

    Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former. -- Albert Einstein
    rides: 93 Crown Vic LX (The Red Velvet Cake), 2000 Crown Vic base model (Sandy), 2003 Expedition (the vacation beast)

    Originally posted by gadget73
    ... and it should all work like magic and unicorns and stuff.

    Originally posted by dmccaig
    Overhead, some poor bastards are flying in airplanes.

    Comment


      #3
      Most people can't solder. My late uncle (used to make all of his own stereo equipment and was a design engineer for Loral Electronics producing gov't spec goodies) used to call it "making grapes"!!


      "Hope and dignity are two things NO ONE can take away from you - you have to relinquish them on your own" Miamibob

      "NEVER trade your passion for glory"!! Sal "the Bard" (Dear Old Dad!)

      "Cars are for driving - PERIOD! I DON'T TEXT, TWEET OR TWERK!!!!"

      Comment


        #4
        Working in the electronics industry, I've seen it. It always amazes me what passes for soldering from some of the people that have come to work for us. And it doesn't help that the "me" generation thinks everything deserves praise no matter how terrible. One of the techs in the shop (the not-so-newb anymore newb) was working on an amplifier that let its smoke out. He replaced a few resistors and was powering up when I was walking by, and let more smoke out. I went over for a look-see... and, well, I guess I'm the first person who ever told him he needs to scrape the carbon off the circuit board before replacing parts. From the look on his face, you think I said I just killed his mother. Not a 'I didn't know that', 'I see', 'got it', 'slipped my mind'. nothing. Grrrr.

        Alex.

        Comment


          #5
          Wow

          Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former. -- Albert Einstein
          rides: 93 Crown Vic LX (The Red Velvet Cake), 2000 Crown Vic base model (Sandy), 2003 Expedition (the vacation beast)

          Originally posted by gadget73
          ... and it should all work like magic and unicorns and stuff.

          Originally posted by dmccaig
          Overhead, some poor bastards are flying in airplanes.

          Comment


            #6
            We have confirmation from 'the other board' from someone who elected to skip fully taking apart the cluster, that they had to tear back into it to resolder the surface mount components under the odometer display itself. They also found that one of their components did have one side cold and fall off when they first touched one side with their iron. So, if you are thinking about risking just doing the easy stuff, rethink that and redo those surface mount components.

            Alex.

            Comment


              #7
              +1 cold solder joints suck... just redo as much as you can find and get an iron on.

              Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former. -- Albert Einstein
              rides: 93 Crown Vic LX (The Red Velvet Cake), 2000 Crown Vic base model (Sandy), 2003 Expedition (the vacation beast)

              Originally posted by gadget73
              ... and it should all work like magic and unicorns and stuff.

              Originally posted by dmccaig
              Overhead, some poor bastards are flying in airplanes.

              Comment


                #8
                Exactly. No sense taking it apart more than once.

                ----8<------------

                Instrument Cluster Self Test;
                Engine off.
                Press & Hold Trip/Reset button.
                Turn key to run.
                Release trip/reset when "tESt" appears in the odometer.
                Press trip/reset to flip through a bunch of cluster specific info, including bulb test (warning lights).
                When you get to the odometer saying "gAge" (which is what it'll do right off the bat), watch the guages have a mini seizure and full sweep, supposedly returning to zero.

                Turn key off when bored.

                Among other info, you will get values for what the car is sending to the cluster to display (ie: fuel level, coolant temp, rpm). And info it could use for guages that should be there (ie: voltage & oil pressure)

                After you plug in your cluster, run the self test, do the guages a couple times and wait for the needles to settle before moving the needles to zero if necessary.

                Alex.

                Comment


                  #9
                  Cool. Nice to have some new car tech data added. We lack a bit of that here.


                  Those are long leads on that vfd. The mark vii one is somewhat similar but much shorter leads.

                  posting from mah phone. plz to be forgiving bad speeling.
                  86 Lincoln Town Car (Galactica).
                  5.0 HO, CompCams XE258,Scorpion 1.72 roller rockers, 3.55 K code rear, tow package, BHPerformance ported E7 heads, Tmoss Explorer intake, 65mm throttle body, Hedman 1 5/8" headers, 2.5" dual exhaust, ASP underdrive pulley

                  91 Lincoln Mark VII LSC grandpa spec white and cranberry

                  1984 Lincoln Continental TurboDiesel - rolls coal

                  Originally posted by phayzer5
                  I drive a Lincoln. I can't be bothered to shift like the peasants and rabble rousers

                  Comment


                    #10
                    One piece at a time. =-)

                    Comment


                      #11
                      My conclusions at this point:

                      -Dim/Flickering odometer, no other issues, resolder as indicated in this thread.

                      -Dying guages or other randomn funkyness, hot air reflow the processor IC. And see what happens.

                      -if it still is acting up after that, use forscan to pull the IC data (its one line, and probably only the first 4 hex bits are set. Find a replacement cluster from your car of choice and flash your original IC data to the new cluster. (no worries about different options, and you can disable tpms also if you are so inclined. Thats another topic however).

                      -erratic fuel gauge operation seems to be instrument cluster related NOT sender related. MGM cluster fuel guage working proper right off the bat.

                      -Don't short out randomn parts of the cluster board, if you do you risk bricking it. I did that by dropping desoldering braid on it... Ooops. But that was the push I needed to install an mgm message center cluster in the cvpi.

                      -You can enable the hour meter on a message center cluster.

                      -If your eyes are like mine, you might want to transfer your red pointers from the cvpi cluster in place of the IMO hard to see white pointers that are on the mgm cluster. And it'll match the gear selector pointer which is red anyway.
                      Attached Files

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