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.