Guys,

I'm working on my son's G35 Coupe. I'm trying to get it in as good shape as possible, before he graduates from Navy OCS (in Newport, Rhode Island). I want him to have as close to a trouble-free car when he is sent off to his next assignment as is possible. I've got 6 more weeks to iron out the bugs, and do general maintenance.

I've done a bunch of stuff. But so's not to divert the thread too much, just yesterday the Instrument Cluster started acting up. Here's what's going on:

• The back lighting to the gauges is NOT lighting, however, see below the bullets.
• The "REV" light is also NOT lighting.
• The odometer is NOT lighting.
• However, the gauges work, but very difficult to see.
• The blinker repeaters in the cluster blinks properly.
• The gauges are all working (mph, tach, fuel, etc).
• The cruise power, and criuse lights work, so does the cruise control.
• Everything except the top 3 NOTs is working.

I pulled the meter fuse. It seemed to be ok, but I put a spare back in just in case. No change. But I don't know if that meter fuse is for just the lights and "NOTs" above, or exactly what.

However, just a few minutes ago, I drove it out to lunch. When I cranked it up after lunch to head back to the office, the left half of the cluster backlighting illuminated. Most of the right half did nothing. I didn't notice if the "REV" was on, or the odometer was on ... or not. I didn't think to notice. But once I started driving away, it seemed like the jostling of the vehicle moving, and what backlights were on, went back out. No amount of slapping, rolling of the brightness ****, shaking, bouncing, poking the trip meter button, nothing made it attempt to light back up.

This sure doesn't sound like a fuse. Fuses don't burn out then sort of reconnect again temporarily. And the brightness **** seemed to have no effect.

Last thing: Years ago, I pulled this cluster and sent it off to (I think it was to a company in Texas), who restored everything, and fixed the fuel gauge. It has worked great since then. Could this be in need of being sent off and checked / repaired again?

Thanks guys. I really want to whip this thing into great shape for him, due to all the torture he's currently going through.

PS - It runs like a top. Very powerful, tons of low end torque, helluva powerplant. Handles, brakes and basically any dynamic performance aspect his car is fantastic.


7milesout

 

So many components on the pcb of the combo meter (gauge cluster) have intermittent connection issues as the cars age. I believe this will likely be just like the fuel gauge problem you previously fixed. I had that problem too and resoldered mine myself following a diy thread on here. You might try searching for that thread and reading through it. If you search for "fuel gauge problem - detailed" you'll find it. It's ridiculously long but there's one post in there from somebody named something like ritchie that detailed a bunch of the components that need to be resoldered to fix a variety of problems. Or if diy is not your thing, you could send it off again and the same place probably knows which components to touch up to fix the backlighting. You can see it's intermittent as it started working spontaneously. It will probably stop again too. The backlight of my odometer and tripmeter no longer works. But I've just decided to live with it.... If I ever pull mine out again, I'll probably retouch every single solder joint on the board.

 

The circuit board on these clusters are known to crap out. Ive gone through a few clusters now trying to get everything working. Some of the lights will come on/off with just a slight touch of pressure on different parts of the board. I have replaced many of the LEDs on mine. Sometimes u get lucky and its the actual LED thats burnt out. But sometimes its the actual board and you will never be able to figure out where the break/loose connection is. There are about a thousand super tiny solder points all over the board. Its impossible to retouch each one by hand. I have even experimented by heating up the entire board with a heat gun thinking it might soften up the solder and have it stick, but no luck.

BTW, the cluster also controls the manumatic mode. So if you have intermittent manumatic, its probably the cluster thats bad.

There is also a “Test Mode” you can activate on the cluster and it will light up every single bulb on there.

Here’s pictures of the front and back side of the cluster board if its any help:

 

Yeah, I've had these clusters out before. They are a thing of beauty, a beauty in which nightmares are born! Not only am I not proficient at soldering, my eyesight is not as it good as it once was. My general plan is to start taking it apart, checking illumination as I go. Disconnect it, reconnect it and check it. Maybe going through those disassembly steps might "reconnect" to the point maybe it will stay connected for a while. If it doesn't, I'll send it off. He won't be keeping the car too much longer I think. A year or 2 maybe.

For a long time he has dreamed and wanted a somewhat late model Tacoma. Very practical that boy. He and I are following to see if Toyota does indeed launch the Stout. And he says he doesn't want 2 cars. I guess I don't blame him. He's going down the Nuke path at this time. And the Navy has already gave him so huge bonuses, and will be paying him well, that is if he completes the Nuclear program. So a Tacoma is feasible. Heck, he's got more than enough now to buy a new one cash. But he's smart, he'll probably buy a 4 or 5 year old vehicle. Unless the Stout is significantly less expensive than a Tacoma.

However, for the next year or so, while he is in Nuke school, I'd like his car to be as trouble-free as possible. Just out of interest, I hooked up to the OBD this morning and checked the codes. It has a pending P0463 (Fuel Level Sensor Circuit High Input). I don't know exactly what this means. I don't know if this code is a symptom, or a cause. Or totally unrelated. I have to guess it is related, but things are complex.

I'll do some research into it, see if I can figure that out. Thanks for the help!


7milesout

Thanks for your help guys.

 

Sorry guys, sorry this post is going to be long, and sorry I keep bugging the crap out of you guys. Maybe I should just leave the car alone! I seem to be making it worse. I'm going to tell you what I did last night, and what is happening now. In chronological order, in case that helps.

Months ago, before my son left for OCS, his horn started honking just in the middle of the night. To make a long story short, he pulled the horn fuse and called it a day.

That's something I was going to try to figure out, during this time while he's gone. So yesterday when I got home, I disconnected the negative lead, and left it unconnected for ~45 minutes. I just wanted to do an ECU reset (I guess) to see if it would have any impact on the cluster illumination. As I waited, I did other things on other cars. But while the negative lead was off, I put the horn fuse back in. After 45 minutes, I tapped the negative lead to the negative post, to see if the horn was going to honk. It did not. So I nutted the lead back on the post. I tapped the horn a time or two and it honked just fine. I left it overnight, but with my ratchet and keys handy in case it started honking. I did not. I will mention that I left the car unlocked overnight, whether that has any impact or not, I do not know.

This morning, when I turned the key to START it went RRrr, no start. I turned the key again and the motor cranked over slowly a couple times and it fired up. But then I noticed the friggin gauges were no longer moving. It still did not illuminate, but now, no gauge movement. I decided to drive it anyway. I drove it out of the neighborhood, turned the A/C on, but it felt like the A/C wasn't working. I fiddled with the HVAC whilst coasting out of the neighborhood, to no avail, no cold air.

Once out of the neighborhood I got a dead-pedal. The accelerator pedal did nothing. The car was stuck at idle, but the accelerator pedal did nothing. I found the hazard light switch, activated them, and luckily found a spot to get out of traffic. I noticed the blinker repeaters in the cluster DID work. Each individual blinker in the cluster worked via the blinker stalk. The cruise light would not illuminate. I managed to get the car into a neighborhood and idled the car around while messing with things. I turned off the A/C switch and soon thereafter, the pedal started working again. After some messing around with it I have found that, very consistently, at around 3 seconds after pushing the A/C button, I get dead-pedaled. I tried the horn during a dead-pedal and the horn sounded weak. If this car runs a dual horn setup, it sounded as if only 1 horn were honking. I didn't think to try the horn during a NON dead-pedal event.

Push the A/C ON, ~3 seconds, dead pedal. Push the A/C OFF, ~3 seconds, pedal comes back to life. I put the windows down and drove it my short distance to work. The gauges didn't work at all this morning, regardless of dead-pedal or not.

Once at work, I slapped in my OBD-II BT thingamuhbob, fired up the Torque Lite app and got 2 codes. I'll mention here, the last time it had no (active) codes, just the one Pending code mentioned in the previous reply.

The (active) codes this morning were: P0462 & P0463. P0463 was "Pending" last time.

Don't be thinking I'm a helpless snowflake. I'm sharing the above because maybe it will help other owners / forum members in the long term. I'm doing some research on my own. And most of it really does point right back to the fact that the cluster is clustered again. And I just need to send the darn thing back out for repair. No big deal at this time because the car is not in continuous use. Reading on here about other same 2 codes and members have replaced their fuel pump and sending unit (multiple instances) and had the same codes and issues after. Another member (in my small amount of research so far) had the same 2 codes, had his cluster repaired and viola, all that crap went away. Pulling the cluster and sending it off again is my current thinking / direction. However, if you guys have ANYTHING to add, I'll read it, and appreciate the effort in any event.

So, I'll try to get to the point I can pull this cluster out maybe Sunday, or next week. Probably not Sunday. I've got to move a son into an apartment late Saturday. So my fat-*** will be whipped on Sunday.

It's very weird what's going on with the A/C and associated dead pedal. Is it related to the cluster? Is it related to the horn fuse? Doesn't make sense, but friggin electrons are complex.

 

UPDATE ALERT !!! UPDATE ALERT !!! UPDATE ALERT !!!

Guys - I just drove the car out at work. And it plum died. I got it to a safe place. The battery is plum dead. After this event, it has occurred to me that the way things have been happening, has been a slow progression of more and more electrical problems. More and more things began to NOT work. Until, the whole damn car doesn't work because the battery is dead. And WHY would that happen?

The ALTERNATOR! I'm 99% certain this whole thing stems from a no good alternator. It's been running on the battery alone the last 3 or 4 days.

So now I'm going to have to figure out the appropriate alternator to purchase. I'm guessing it will be a Denso. And I'll have to find the procedure for replacing the alternator, because I've done a few, and this one looks more involved than the others I've done.

Comments? Questions? Suggestions? Concerns? Links to alternators or removal procedure? I do not have the service manual.

Thanks!

 

The factory service manual for your car is available online: https://www.nicoclub.com/infiniti-service-manuals

The dead pedal behavior started to sound like alternator. I've had that happen with my Murano which is nearly the same as the 1st gen G35's. I haven't done it on the G35 but would think it's straightfroward because it's not wedged in there. The Murano's transverse setup makes it much harder. Check out the FSM and the instructions for removal and you'll be good. Will be interesting to see if the new alternator resolves the problem with the combo meter. I'm leaning toward those problems being unrelated and your backlight will still be out but who knows....

 

Thanks for the link, you made my day.

 

Many thanks for this!

I'm adding to this thread, and some of you may find my posting overly redundant maybe, but a lot of members never come back in to post up their findings, or their success afterwards. I'm trying not to do that. So...

UPDATE!

My last post I had left the G35 "in a safe place." Which was on the driveway entrance to where I work. At the end of the work day, I had a couple of my sons show up with a pickup truck and a tow strap. But before we hooked up to it, I wanted to see if it would run on it's own, as all I was going to do was tow it into the parking lot. The driveway had a bit of a downhill slant to it. So I had them push and I got it bump started and it dead pedal / idled itself into a parking spot. Thank God for manual transmissions! I guess the battery recovered somewhat. It sat at work the whole next day while I figured out my next move, and worked on my other son's RX8.

I decided to throw another vehicle's battery in it, drive it about 1 mile down to an autozone and have the alternator tested. I didn't want to spend $250 plus tax on an alternator on just a hunch. At the end of that day I brought my old Ram to the parking lot to use one of its batteries (it runs two) in the G35. Well, both of those batteries are way monster too big to fit in the G. I took it home and measured my GMC Sierra's battery. It would fit, but it used those friggin' side female attachments. So that wouldn't work. I then measured my Mitsubishi Mirage battery and it seemed really close, maybe the same group code.

So I drove the Mirage over there and swapped the Mirage battery into the G35. The Mirage battery is only a 356 CCA factory battery that's 4 years old! I was afraid it wouldn't have enough juice power. The first turn it only went RRR-rrr. The 2nd turn the car fired up. So I hustled it down to the autozone. It took him about 5 seconds and I asked him, how's the alternator. He said, "what alternator?" Ha! He said it was "PLUM GONE. It's doing nothing." So yeah, I predicted it correctly. That was Friday after work.

When I got back in the car, I decided to drive it back to the house because I was only maybe 2 to 2.5 miles away from home. Then had a son take me and the clown car battery back to my work and reinstalled it back in the clown car. Fired right up and has been fine since. I had left the G35 battery there in the parking lot so I put it in the Mirage and decided to again stop by the autozone on the way home and have the battery tested. The guy said it was at 27% and that was too low to run the test on the battery. Seems like yesterday I read that any time a "auto-type" battery is pulled down to, some percentage like 70% or less, that it damages the battery. I don't know the truth about that, but it was pulled down FAR BELOW that. And it is 4 to 5 years old, so I'm going to replace that battery also.

Friday night I ordered the Denso reman right fit alternator, and it showed up Monday. I haven't installed it as yet, been dealing with my son's RX8. It just needed new vacuum hoses on the intake side, no big deal, but it took LOTS of digging to replace them. He's got to drive it off to college this Saturday, so it has priority. The G35 still has about 6 weeks before it may be put back in my Navy OCS son's hands.

Summary: Coming along, root cause identified, I'll try to get to this either end of this week or early next week as the weekend will be spent moving the RX8 son into his dorm.

jbarnett250 - I agree with you. I'm NOT totally convinced the cluster illumination isn't unrelated. It could be unrelated. However, before the battery got overly dead, when I would turn the key to ON, before starting, half of the cluster would illuminate, for maybe 3 to 5 seconds. And then go out. As if the battery had recovered some while it sat. So, maybe there's some chance it is related. I did however notice that the clown car battery did not illuminate the cluster or run the gauges. But, even though that battery is the same size as the G35's, it must not have anything inside but popsicle sticks and water. Works fine in the clown car, perhaps not enough beef to run a much more complex car like the G35. And it barely got it started...

 

One last thing. After I got home with the 27% G35 battery, I slapped a charger on it anyway. I'll need it to crank the car to put it up on ramps to get up underneath it for the alternator. We shall see what happens with the cluster when I put that battery back in. It seems to have charged up just fine, like a normally functioning battery would do. The charger displays status, and it took a while, but it did get to a fully charged state. Should be fine for a few cranks.

 

Nice update. Having extra cars and people to help out goes a long way when dealing with stuff like this. Some people that aren't car people just have to give up and get a new car rather than deal with problems as it gets too expensive to pay other people to fix multiple crazy things that might take more than one go when you're trying to figure it out. Hope it turns out good for you and your son.

 

Thanks buddy. I'm old now. A college dad. Been on forums a looooong time. Since they were invented. Back in 1997 I accidentally stumbled upon a lot of what you mention in your reply. I had a 1984 Toyota Celica GT 5-speed. But wanted a truck. I bought a 1988 Chevy Suburban 2500 4x4 for cheap. At first I thought I'll keep the Celica long enough to get the truck straight. The truck didn't take much. And then I thought, if I sell the Celica, I'm going to get nothing for it, so I'll just keep it. After just a short time it turned out to be so convenient. Any time either of them had a problem, I could park it and drive the other and slowly sort out the problem. It was nice. Repairs were cheap if I had time to do it myself. I never looked back. I have a bunch of cars now, but none of them are particularly expensive. I haven't had a car payment in 14 or 15 years.

I have 3 sons. I wanted each of them to have a G35. My oldest 2 have G35's (rev-ups, and LOVE 'EM). When it came time to get a G35 for my youngest son, the prices for ones that were in good shape, not riced out, not rolling turds had gone WAY up. Somehow we managed to find a 2006 RX8. Yeah I know ... rotary. He showed it to me 3 times over about 4 months. I rejected it the first 2 times because rotary ... and I had an FD not all that long ago, so I know them well. After looking at a couple polished turds (G35s) and rejecting them, I decided to look at the RX8. It was in great, original shape. It's had some issues. Every time we mess with it, we try to do things that extend the life of a rotary. The cat plugged, one of the problems. So, even though we do emissions where I live, it is running catless, and a minicat is fooling it quite nicely. It runs great. Not the torque of a VQ, but quite a nice car. All 3 sons have a 2-door coupe, rear wheel drive, 6-speed manual.

 

You can't brag about being an old timer on forums unless you go back further than that. Like Usenet. Old unix-to-unix db I was using in college in ~'90. Rec.moto. Rec.racing. Debates (flame wars) about tech stuff because it was only tech or university people involved back then about if countersteering works or not. That's old stuff. Somebody out here must know about the DoD (maybe have a number) and all that old stuff. But you'd have to be at least 55-60 as it got all windowsy and www-y after that.

We have super similar approach to cars. I'm a dad who just bought his highschool kids their first practice car. An already banged up on every corner Murano for $500 because it kept stranding the lady who owned it because of the alternator. Not nearly as cool as coupes but I don't seem to come across deals like that. And he already got rear ended. Today kind of crash.... Door dash driver stopped in the middle of a state highway where nobody stops and 4th driver in line probably looking at their phone hit my kid and totaled the Murano. Was able to buy it back for 750 and pocket 4500 and car is just barely more scratched up than before. I tend to buy cars and drive them until the rust takes them. Toyotas mostly but little bit of everything. I had an 84 RX7 back in the day that already smoked when I bought it. It was brown/brown.... Towed my race bike trailer with it and killed the clutch and traded it to my mechanic for porting work on my 2 stroke roadracers. 1994 4Runner after that was the last car I ever had a car payment on. Sequoia after that to haul the kids..... My kid's 2010 Murano is the newest car at my house. 2002 Sequoia with 290k. 2006 G35 with 295k. The 14 year old Murano is like a new car with only 165k. It's really nice too because I haven't monkeyed with it by raising it (sequoia) or lowering it (G35) so it still rides nice, quiet and comfy. I've never sold a single one of my bikes because they're just worth nothing to anybody but me. 87 TZ250 racer. 89 NSR250 TTF3 racer. 88 NSR250SP Rothmans replica streetbike. 87 VFR700 bought while in college in 91. 2005 SV1000 because I had to get a twin eventually and something from this century. And last addition was a beater ZRX1100 wannabe eddie lawson replica from 1999 because I always wanted one and it's like my dream car firebird from american beauty. Don't know why I keep adding. Some kind of mental defect.

You've done your kids a service for sure teaching them to drive manual transmission cars and getting them fun ones. I feel bad about getting my son a Murnao as my daughter told me her friends think it's "a lady car" and it absolutely behaves like one. But he seems happy to have his independence. I'm in the market for a Jeep for my daughter and would love to get her a manual but think she'd have a hard time for some reason. Or at least a harder time than drivng an auto. It's hard enough to get them to drive and not bump into things driving the autos as simple as they are.

Thanks for sharing your interesting auto journey. Hope to hear you get the G35 working soon.

 

We must be like brothers or something. We have done a lot alike. I roadraced motorcycles in 1996, 1997 and 1998 with WERA. I always LOVED those TZs. Well, I take that back, I thought they were a joke at first, until I watched them. And then I wanted one, but I'm just too big of a guy. I'm built like a linebacker. But I never had 2 nickels to rub together back then. My parents were just average middle class with kids, they never had extra money. I was lucky to get to race at all. I raced in the meat-grinder 600cc class, with a 1995 ZX6-R. I know all those bikes you listed. You were doing something right to procure them all. And I'd love to come stand in your garage and drool over them. And would love to fire that TZ up and enjoy the spectrum of noise it makes. I also fell in love with the 125s. Man those things would rail through turns. I own a Suzuki Boulevard M109R B.O.S.S. I don't love it like I did my racebike and my GSXR 1100. Nothing wrong with it, I'm just not meshing with it well for some reason.

As for my sons, they had to go through a qualification process, to get their G35s / RX8. They had to drive for ~1.5 years in high school or so in a 2003 Toyota Camry 4-banger. They had to keep it maintained and uncrashed. If they crashed it, they wouldn't get an upgrade. None of the 3 crashed it. They all made their qualification! But I wanted them to learn how traffic and bad drivers work, and not having to figure out how a clutch works simultaneously. The Camry was like a big golf cart. So easy, and it never had 1 single problem. The Camry I bought dirt cheap ($2,750, a lot more than your $600 Murano!) from my parents after they owned it for 12 or 13 years. They had bought it through where I worked, Toyota Technical Center in Michigan (at that time). I just sold that car maybe 9 months ago. Just too many cars. I liked Toyota before I worked in design for them. I'd still be working at Toyota ... but the wife, she didn't like living in Michigan.

I bought my wife a 2000 4Runner with a V6 and 5-speed manual in 2001 from where I worked. Damn that was a great vehicle. When we had our 3rd son, it was just too narrow. We had to have them in car seats, and closing the 2nd door the door trim had to compress from all the car seats. We had to get a minivan. The minivan was great too, but not like the 4Runner.

I had an 83 RX7. When my 84 Celica GT got crashed (not my fault) with 297k miles on it, the insurance company gave me $1,800. I had been seeing an RX-7 for sale on the side of the road. So I bought it for the $1,800 the insurance company gave me. Long story on that car. Later I got a 1993 RX7 for cheap and fixed it up nice. That was a helluva car. I had to sell it just before my sons would have been trying to drive it. They would've gotten hurt in that thing. That thing was a monster. We've raced motorcycles, owned 4Runners, RX7s, and cheap pre-scratched cars for our kids. We must be brothers. Anywho - sounds like we need to start a new thread!

My RX8 son finished his car yesterday. Now he's telling me I may not need to go down with him to move to Brunswick. So, I may get the G35 alternator on this weekend.