PINTO CAR CLUB of AMERICA
Welcome to FordPinto.com, The home of the PCCA => General Help- Ask the Experts... => Topic started by: slowride on January 30, 2014, 06:26:44 PM
-
I got bored yesterday (recovering from eye surgery) and decided to pull the gauge cluster to find out why a couple illumination bulbs were inop. OK, that was mistake #1.
I had it on the bench and decided to put 12 volts to each circuit to check which were inop (mistake#2).
The short version is I smoked 2 circuits on the circuit board. It took out the fuel gauge, illumination, and back fed the turn indicators. Good job. I spent the night looking for a used '74 cluster (we all know how well that went) and kicking myself in the butt.
I've done quite a bit of soldering as my dad was into electronics and had me doing it at an early age. I pulled the cluster again today and the copper was thick enough to take solder and make jumpers if done correctly.
Looks kinda ugly, but the bottom line is, yes, you can solder the PCB to repair screw ups and other assorted issues. Oh, and yes all my lights work now ;D
-
You got lucky there for sure,lol..
-
When you have sight issues you have surgery.
When you have surgery you get bored.
When you get bored you pull the dash from your car.
When you pull the dash from your car you short out circuits.
When you short out circuits you want to wipe away tears from your surgically repair eyes.
Don't wipe tears from your surgically repaired eye. Get Direct TV. LOL
Glad you were able to work around the problem. Been there, done that. Hope your eye recovers soon.
-
When you have sight issues you have surgery.
When you have surgery you get bored.
When you get bored you pull the dash from your car.
When you pull the dash from your car you short out circuits.
When you short out circuits you want to wipe away tears from your surgically repair eyes.
Don't wipe tears from your surgically repaired eye. Get Direct TV. LOL
Glad you were able to work around the problem. Been there, done that. Hope your eye recovers soon.
Cracked me up! The real payoff ultimately was my dash is BRIGHTER now (more than just the inop bulbs)! Don't know why, not gonna tear it apart again to figure it out.....
-
I've also used like extremely small modeling screws or super small 3/32" rivets to go through wire ends and no heat applied at all. Been working for years like that and how I tap those circuits for other add-on things. You may need to grind both sides of a washer or rivet to fit in between the PCB copper runs. Got a airbag clockspring also rigged like that and did it for free a couple years ago too.
Part of the stuff there (gauges thinking) use 5V after the transformer, 12V will toast those.
-
When you have sight issues you have surgery.
When you have surgery you get bored.
When you get bored you pull the dash from your car.
When you pull the dash from your car you short out circuits.
When you short out circuits you want to wipe away tears from your surgically repair eyes.
Don't wipe tears from your surgically repaired eye. Get Direct TV. LOL
That's funny, LOL...
-
I have a perfectly good circuit board that I may not be using anymore as my cluster had burned out lights and fell apart when I was pulling it out. Luckily, Greg saw my post and is sending me an outstanding unit (for a nominal fee of course). I don't know if it will work though as my car is a 77'.