Hey everyone, I have been working on my instrument cluster on and off for the past few weeks. Not sure if I want to send it down to North Hollywood Speedometer service right now or try to troubleshoot some more. I will give you the low down on my problems.

Bought my 79 euro 5spd over a year ago. All guages worked fine for the first month or so except for the trip-odometer (never worked) and oil pressure stays pegged at 5bar. Then the speedometer, alternator and oil pressure gauges would just stop working for a period of time while driving. For the first several months the guages would work most of the time. As months went on the guages would work less and less and then to the point where they didnt work at all.

So I pulled apart the pod a few weeks ago. I was hoping to find a bad connection or dirty one. Looks like all connections are good. Cant really tell if they are making good contact though.

So next I cleaned up everything and reconnected just the guage cluster and all the switches. I have been driving it that way for a few days.

Now just this morning I headed to work. After a few minutes of driving all guages began to work. Also my trip-odometer started working perfectly. It has never worked before. The only wierd thing is that my alternator guage was a little jumpy. Bouncing a bit. Kinda like when you use the turn signal but a little worse than that. Anyway all the guages worked fine for about 10 minutes. Just before getting to work the speedometer, alternator and trip-odometer stopped working. The oil guage still stayed pegged at 5 bar like it usually does.

So what do you all think?? I think it almost has to be a bad connection somewhere. It didnt stop working when I hit bumps or anything. It stopped working sitting at a stop light. The car runs perfect. Should I send it down to have checked out. Im afraid they will say I need a new guage cluster even if the one I have is not bad.

Any help would much be appreciated.

Thanks

 

Curt, my advice to older 928 owners when experiencing intermittent electrical problems is to replace ALL the fuses as a first step - even if the existing ones look just fine.

Those funky bullet fuses used on our older cars are prone to intermittent contact and hairline cracks in the melt strip.

Using the Owner's Manual (or the 928 Specialist's fuse/relay guide at <a href="http://www.928gt.com" target="_blank">www.928gt.com</a> ) replace each fuse with the proper rated one. Clean each end of the fuse holder with some light emery paper and bend each tab slightly inward to ensure a good hold on the fuse.

Replacement fuses will cost less than $10.00 - get several of each amperage rating.

 

Thanks Randy, I just bought new fuses the other day and plan on putting them in this weekend. I will make sure all connections down there are clean and that the fuse fits snuggly between the metal ends.

Does anyone sell the glass type of fuse with conicle ends on them? Not sure if they would be any better but I kinda like them better.

Everyone have a good weekend. <img src="graemlins/xyxwave.gif" border="0" alt="[bigbye]" />

 

UPDATE:

Contacted North Hollywood Speedometer service. (nice people) Said that they are very familiar with 928 VDO gauges.

They charge $20 to test and evaluate the instrument cluster. If the mylar circuit backing is going bad that costs $90 to fix. If the speedometer itself is bad that costs $120 to repair. They said worst case would be a $300 fix for the cluster.

They said it sounds like its the mylar circuit backing on mine since the speedometer will work some of the time.

Will be sending it down tomorrow and will update when I hear from them.

 

Curt,

Since you already pulled the cluster out. Call 928 Specialist's, they sell the flexible PCB (printed circuit board) for around $90.00. Easy to install yourself.

John D.

 

When I bought a replacement PCB thingy a couple years ago it was only about $45.

It's very easy to test instrument continuities with a simple multimeter.

 

Thanks Dozman I will check out 928 specialists before I send it off. Randy im not much of an expert at electronics. I do have a tester but know very little about it. It would probably be better for me to spend the 20 bucks and find out exactly whats wrong. I might be willing to buy the printed circuit and try installing it if its under 50 bucks.

 

Maybe I was off on the $$$'s, but it was a reasonable amount for the fix.

John D.