kaotiq

i have a 92 sc300, 181K ALL my lights for my needles are gone... dead. Any suggestions, im a new SC300 owner

O. L. T.

iTrader: (17)

if this thread has not helped you do this, you may consider professional repair instead.

UCI Jim

Onelasttry,
Did you circle the capacitors on that pic?
Are those the only parts that need replacing?
I have no experience with electrical work but would like to try
Thx

O. L. T.

iTrader: (17)

uci, it is different for every speedo. there is a certain amount of real troubleshooting involved. there is no certain part in any cluster that one can point a finger too. these speedo's are also very sensative to FLEX.. they are decently thick, but they flex when handled and the old solder joints seperate when that happens. i'd say it is likely that even if you sucessfully get the needles working again, there may be certain parts of the cluster that dont function correctly afterwards.

so you have two options here, since you are just "trying" a fix here and dont troubleshoot much you might be getting in over your head because if you replace all these parts and fix one problem, but then from the board flexing in your hands and seperating the solder joints on the board you now have two problems instead of one.


There are over 1,000 solder joints in the cluster. wanna guess which one is the bad one? these can be the biggest hassle in the world because of their age. the old tracers and joints start cracking when the board flex's and before you know it nothing works.

One more thing.. there are several MOSFET chips in the cluster. if you are not wearing a static discharge bracelet and working at a static free workbench, one of the chips can be damaged just by you touching the board.... they are near impossible to find. replacement at this stage is not likely.

So, now you are ready to try it. it can be done sucessfully, but when working with older boards flexing the joints and touching the board on which mosfet chips are installed without the proper tools for the job can lead to disaster.

Now you are ready. good luck.

UCI Jim

thx for the help

kaotiq

thanx man, i been like reading and reading but it seems rather hard to fix haha! All my guage needles work. They are fully functional, just that the lights for the needles are dead.

O. L. T.

iTrader: (17)

Review the thread and the pic for the problem spots and if you think you can tackle it, go for it.

UCI Jim

Just to let everyone know, I took out my cluster today, and decided that I would swap out a broken needle with a good one, and found out that on my setup, it seems as though its only the needles that need replacing.
Any thoughts on this Onelastry?

O. L. T.

iTrader: (17)

if you swapped the needle and it fired up, congrads! there are certainly needles out there that have problems.

Edited to remove red "X"

UCI Jim

Actually no, I just swapped positions, so now I need to find 2 new needles. Do you know if Lexus went with uiversal needles on all models or certain models or would I have to stick with sc300 needles? I like the look of the LS gauges and needles.

O. L. T.

iTrader: (17)

im thinking they are the same size, they are definately the same led's and connections. unfortunately i focus only on sc's. i'll warn you though.... they can cost as much as 200 per needle and you will still have a bad board if thats the problem.

Taka

is it easy to take out the needle?

UCI Jim

Yeah the needle just comes right out. I can buy a used cluster on ebay for 100 bucks or so.

SDSC300

90% of the time mine work 100%

1 small section on the rpm and 1 small section on the mph needles sometimes go out

92- 110k

CapnHal

UCI Jim:

Where do you see used clusters on EBay?