Pictish

I know this is over a year old, but was this ever resolved? I have a deposit down on a 16k mile 1992 Celsior with this same issue. Ideally I'd prefer to swap out the multi-display for a regular rear A/C climate control unit and put in an aftermarket stereo. I'm trying to discern whether they'd be plug and play or if the connectors (and likely ECU) would be different. Could you tell me if the above picture is the entire unit, including stereo, or if that's just the back of the multi display unit? Does anyone know if I'm likely to be able to source a rear A/C climate unit, or are they unobtanium? What level of control over the HVAC system, if any, does one have with the multi display blank? I'd be grateful for any information or advice.

avhart

The one and only person I think may be able to fix your multidisplay is a guy named Mike Beck in New Zealand who has a Facebook page called "Soarer Surgeon". I have been meaning to send mine to him for a good while now but haven't got around to it as yet. Without the EMV working your a/c will still function (as mine is at present) but only on AUTO and you will still be able to adjust the temperature.

The pic you asked about is just the EMV, the stereo is a separate unit that fits below that.

I myself have also considered swapping out the EMV for a new after market LCD/Stereo/GPS. To do that you (or your technician) will have to run separate wires to the speakers because the existing wiring goes through the power amp in the trunk. As for the air-con you will have to purchase from ebay or elsewhere a Climate Control unit whose part number, I believe is 55900-50090, this from a US spec LS400 that did not have the EMV. I have been told that should be a direct plug-in to your existing harness and will restore full a/c functionality.

I love my 1992/1993 Celsior (90,000 km) and have done considerable work on it so far. You are welcome to ask any further questions you may have and I will try to help.

PhilipMidd

I purchased a 89 Celsior a few months ago. Its now done 190K Km. It was one that was apparently privately imported directly from Japan (to Australia).
Australia started importing them in 1990, making mine just a little different in ways i'm still by chance finding out about
The original radio has been removed and an aftermarket Sony unit installed. Its not functioning but I intend to replace it with a 2 Din CD/DVD/MP3/MP4/GPS/OBD Android unit.
Currently the entire center cluster (AC/Heat/Time etc) is dead. No LED's on the buttons, No LCD, No Functions, so I'm assuming its no power but not sure yet.
I'm about to do the ECU cap fix and I wanted to do the caps on the instrument cluster to see what effect that has on the center cluster.

I was wondering if you have any idea either what the main instrument cluster caps were, or where to look to find them.
Thanks.

PhilipMidd

Hello Yamae.
As mentioned in above post, I dont have the original radio in my 89 Celsior. Its been replaced with a standard Sony unit. In my year, I think the original radio was just a radio... Is this correct?
Question 1. Was the radio in the 89 Celsior just function as a radio? ie Did the car loose any functionality when the original Radio was replaced with the standard universal Sony CD player it has now?
I only ask as I cant try things as my central cluster is dead (as talked about with you in another thread).
Next, you indicated in this quoted post that some (maybe all?) of the speakers are 2 ohms.
I understand that standard decks (like the 2 DIN Andriod Deck I'm intending to install) only handle 8 ohms to 4 ohms.
Question 2. Did Toyota put 2 ohm speakers in all the Celsiors, and if so was it All speakers or just the front ones?
Question 3. What value resisters did you use to fix this (presumably to take them to 4 ohms). Just a 2 ohms resister in parallel?
Question 4. When changing the Stereo to a 4-8 ohms output unit, is it better to just change the speakers?
and last but not least...
Question 5. Where can I find out what the value of the caps are on the instrument cluster and do they also need to be low ESR caps like the ECU caps? I understand that they control a fare bit of what goes on in the center section.
I'm about to order the ECU caps from Digi-key (they currently have them all in stock) so if these need to be ESR I will get them at the same time. Postage to Australia is more than the cost of the caps, so might as well fill up the package.

avhart

Hey Phillip, Yamae is really the guy for those technical board-level electronic questions. Also I know there is more than a considerable amount of different types of Celsior instrument clusters by year, model and VIN. In a case like yours, and mine for that matter, I can only suggest the following two links to businesses that specialize in repairing those clusters. I have not used any of them as yet but I intend to as soon as I can.

They are: http://www.mrwhizard.com/ and http://www.taninautoelectronix.com/category-s/1853.htm

As for the speaker impedance I believe you would need to either put appropriate value resistors in series with each of them or change them out altogether.

Good luck and you can always message me again for any further questions or comments.you might come up with.

Yamae

Although I have experienced to help local dealers and shops, I myself have never been owned any early Celsiors and I don't know the detail about them but as far as I know,
Answer 1. The original radio in a 89 Celsior functions not only as a radio but also as a CD controller, cassette player and highway emergency radio. It doesn't have a power amplifier inside and it uses an external one. The interface between them is quite complicated since there go audio signals and digital control signals.
Answer 2. I believe the front speakers and the sub woofer are 2 Ohms. The rear speakers are 4 Ohms.
Answer 3. In order to not stress the output transistors, I have tried to use 2.2 Ohms in series but soon changed to 1.8 Ohms to get a bit more power for my 98 Celsior.
Answer 4. It would be safer to change speakers in case the new radio/amplifier is not capable to drive 2 Ohms speaker.
Answer 5. Sorry that I don't have any good answer about Q5.

PhilipMidd

Hello avhart.
Thanks for the response. I'll look them up but limited funds means I'll probably have a crack at doing it myself (plus I get a kick from doing this sort of thing myself).
Yeah, I have noticed that just about every Celsior I have seen pictures of the cluster for are slightly different. Makes for interesting times repairing stuff.

PhilipMidd

Thanks heaps mate.
1. Interesting. Thanks. I noticed the button with all the Japanese writing on it. Read somewhere that it was the Japanese emergency radio station preset. Thought it was strange having it separate from the radio, its what made me wonder what other interactions might take place between the radio and non-music related functions of the car. But it looks like the original radio's function set was limited to just sound (CD stacker , Radio, etc). Good. Means I don't lose any non-music functionality by replacing the radio with something completely after market.
2. Thanks.
3.1. Front speakers. Should I put the 1.8 ohms resister on the positive side before both the main speaker and the tweeter? Of just one before the main speaker?
3.2. Sub: Again, just on the positive side before the sub I assume?
4. I'll install a small amp to save the deck. If the amp dies or has trouble I'll change the front speakers.
5. Yeah, this seems to be a pull it apart and see job. There's a youTube video ( ) of someone changing out some caps and getting good results but little to no details on exactly what they changed. Check out 4:30 in that video, thats what got my attention. Replacing the caps in the cluster got his lights on the center cluster of buttons working.
I'll keep looking but if need be I'll just pull the cluster and start taking measurements if I cant see values. Maybe I'll just start replacing caps and see what happens. I'll just keep the old ones and their position so that if something screwy happens I can put them back.
I'm handy with a soldering iron (steady hand) and I have a 1/2 decent soldering station so the soldering wont be a problem.

Thanks a lot mate. I Appreciate your help very much.

Yamae

Regarding 3.1 and 3.2 (series resistor), it would be simple and easy to put the resistor on the positive side of the output line of the amplifier.

Regarding electrolytic capacitors, we should study and know more. There are many kinds of electrolytic capacitors and there are differences. Among them, QAS （Quaternary Ammonium Salt) capacitors are very critical and we should be careful for the life span of them since the liquid inside becomes very strong alkali when aged and corrodes lead wires and leaks out.

On the other hand, most of other electrolytic capacitors only loose the capacitance and increases the ESR and seldom leaks out in accordance with the Arrhenius equation which was originated by Svante Arrhenius who was a Nobel-Prize winning Swedish scientist, originally a physicist

Some people say, "Just replace all the electrolytic capacitors when aged". I don't deny it but I don't recommend to do it unconditionally. There are hundreds of them in a modern car and it is a time consuming job to replace all of them. I would only replace some of them measuring the ESR. I have a home made dynamic ESR meter and this works great without removing the capacitor. This meter is consisting of a noise generator and a spectrum analyser. You can check the condition of capacitors easily just attaching proves to a capacitor on the board. I'm quite comfortable to deal with these type of affairs and that makes me quite busy these days requested to help by local shop owners and even dealers. I'd say they should study basic electronics affairs more to deal with modern computerized cars.

I recommend people as follows. Simply replace QAS capacitors when the car is aged unconditionally. (The youngest one was 10 years old in my experience) Other electrolytic capacitors should be checked by an ESR meter and replace only some that have bigger ESR.

There are ESR meters in the market. For example it is something like this in your country. http://www.bobparker.net.au/esr_meter/esrhints.htm

PhilipMidd

Once again, thank you very much. I can see I'm going to have to hit the books to understand all this. I'm only barely hobby level electronics and while I know there were other factors to Cap for example, ESR was not something I knew anything about.
I'll look into either buying or making an ESR meter. I have several veritable bench top power supplies, MultiMeters and a dual channel CROW (old but still serviceable). Adding another tool to the collection sounds like fun!
ESR Meters: Capacitor ESR: 2μF-50mF Resolution: 0.01Ω - is this sensative enough? if not, can you give me an idea of what range to look for?

Thanks.

Addendum:
Would this be something like what is needed?
https://www.ebay.com.au/sch/i.html?_...R-100&_sacat=0
Damn, found this one in the US. Looks cheaper (less Bells and Whistles but more accurate.) https://anatekinstruments.com/produc...esr-meter-besr

Yamae

Resolution 0.01Ω is good enough to find out capacitors which are no longer in good condition. A new and very low ESR electrolytic capacitors usually have 0.01Ω or more. See the data below of the KYC series of Nippon Chemicon. The lowest ESR value you can find is 0.024Ω.
http://www.chemi-con.co.jp/e/catalog...kyc-e-2018.pdf

In order to compare new low ESR capacitors, the resolution 0.01Ω may not be good enough and you need to buy a better and expensive one. But for the maintenance purpose, 0.01Ω is OK enough.

For a person who fix aged cars needs an ESR meter and an oscilloscope in addition to a multi meter and a DC power supply, I'd say. One of my local shop owners now has all of these after seeing me to fix a Nissan in 10 minutes. He has been spending a week to find out the cause of the no engine start problem. The output of the crank position sensor (CPS signal) was swinging only 2.2V-5V (ie: 0.3V-5V is normal). He did have a simple scope but it was not OK to read the low side of the waveform accurately. He had no idea to understand that the low side was way higher than the good level. The ECU could not recognize the CPS signal well enough.

PhilipMidd

Thanks mate. I only really need the equipment for sorting out this car problem, but having a device that can test caps easily in place, that kinda opens up some possibilities considering most electronic failures are caps. I had no idea before that these test devices existed.
Got a cheep one (for now) on the way.
OK. going to get back into electronics a bit more.
Going to start hitting the electronics books. (in my spare time.....)