2004 Land Cruiser Gauge Cluster FIXED! How-To (1 Viewer)

[ramangain]

Fantasitc work jerryb, thank you.

HOLY HECK that is expensive.

I was thinking 10+ ft. for the extensions so that (initially) I can set up a table right next to MJK's rig. The table would be where the oscope and cluster would sit for troubleshooting. I don't think 6-7 ft. extensions would be long enough for this work conveniently. Hell, even 15 ft. extensions would be really nice.

I'll PM you jerryb.

 

[JohnnyMackerel]

Holy Moses you guys lost me a few posts ago with all this electronics wizardry talk but it looks to me like this may be gaining some traction with you electronics gods, I can pitch in about 50 bucks without wifey raising an eyebrow so PM me to let me know.

 

[OwnerCS]

Holy Moses you guys lost me a few posts ago with all this electronics wizardry talk but it looks to me like this may be gaining some traction with you electronics gods, I can pitch in about 50 bucks without wifey raising an eyebrow so PM me to let me know.

+1 -- I'll pitch in for the community.

 

[ramangain]

Thanks guys!

I've taken it to PM with the folks who may have skin in the game for the initial R&D. I'll keep folks posted, and if it goes forward with seriousness, we'll start a new thread.

Please keep in mind this would be specific to 03+ LX owners, since the fix for the dancing needles is unknown and the stepper motors apparently cannot be sourced. We hope to find the issue on the cluster board and be able to repair it, rather than continue to struggle to try and source the infamous stepper motors (which I don't think are the root cause of the issue anyways).

 

[James Bentley]

Thanks guys!

I've taken it to PM with the folks who may have skin in the game for the initial R&D. I'll keep folks posted, and if it goes forward with seriousness, we'll start a new thread.

Please keep in mind this would be specific to 03+ LX owners, since the fix for the dancing needles is unknown and the stepper motors apparently cannot be sourced. We hope to find the issue on the cluster board and be able to repair it, rather than continue to struggle to try and source the infamous stepper motors (which I don't think are the root cause of the issue anyways).

I'm with @JohnnyMackerel and @OwnerCS count me in and I am PM'ing @ramangain

 

[jerryb]

combo meter and associated body ecu points, relays, junctions etc.

 

[ramangain]

Thank you for the offers to chip in so far. It is all greatly appreciated.

A separate thread should get started once this thing gets some legs. In order for that to happen, it looks like about $600 in capital costs. Jerry gave a ROM in a previous post for the extension cables, but the cost will increase since I believe 15 ft. extensions are needed. A decent used oscope I've budgeted about $200, although if someone has one that they can let us borrow, that would help tremendously. I *may* buy the oscope myself since it can be handy for other little projects I dream up, but don't do due to lack of equipment.

ALL of this has to come together and be in Tucson by the end of the month; I'll be rolling through Tucson and visiting MJK at this time. I also need confirmation he's OK with his rig being used as the test bed (@MJK send me a text and let me know).

If one piece of this puzzle doesn't come together, then the project won't happen since I own an 01 LX and can't do the testing on my own rig.

For now, I won't accept money for the project. I want to ensure it is green lit before ANY money changes hands.

 

[jerryb]

should have said, A B C and D correspond to wiring book letters. but for LC it's C12-15, left to right sitting in the front seat looking
forward. For LX it's still C but starts at a different number. ABCD should still be the same. Whats missing will be lexus extras. light bulb out, etc.

same for the pics above.

 

[ramangain]

Our project never happened due to COVID resurgence. I did not stop to visit MJK.

 

[MJK]

Oddly, the tach cluster started working anyways earlier this week. I have not idea what caused it, and it has been stone dead apart from the initial 'stepper dance' since the initial symptoms started a month(?) ago. It now gets lazy (RPM reads 500-750 rpm lower than it actually is) on occasion, but has not died again. I'm sure it will, but it hasn't.

I haven't changed a thing on the truck during this time. It has cooled off a bit.

 

[Myers]

Symptoms: no tach, battery gauge sometimes doesn’t work, gauges flutter at startup.

So I sent my cluster off to have it worked on (not by Tannin) and got a call from the tech working on it. He said with the cluster hooked up and powered as it would be in the vehicle everything is working properly and tach (which is dead 99% of the time) is working and responding as it should. He stated he felt like there is some type of ground issue with the vehicle and not an issue with the stepper motors at all. I told him anytime I have to unhook the battery all the gauges work right after that. I also asked him about the possibility of a resistor being messed up and he said that definitely could be a possibility too. He did resolder what he called questionable connections but was not sure if they were resistors or not because he did not pull the pointers on the stepper motors and really examine the board. He said the Lexus pointers are so sensitive to put back together he didn’t want to take a chance in messing them up. I agreed since everything was performing fine for him and there was no reason to take the chance.

He is going to put some notes in the box on what he thinks the problem is. Once I get the cluster back I will take a picture of the stuff he soldered and report on if it fixed the problem.

Again, he said he did not think it was a stepper motor problem at all.

Hopefully we can find a solution to this!

 

[Myers]

Okay, so got the cluster back from the shop and here are pictures of the back side of it. The order of the photos would be the first photo is the back of temp and oil pressure gauges and they work their way across the back ending with the battery/fuel gauges. I took close up pics so everyone could see the soldering incase there is something I missed.
He did not specify in the notes which spots he resoldered but it looks like the spots where the stepper motors are soldered. Like I said in my previous post, he mentions again check all grounds on vehicle but since Tannin Auto
can fix this with just the cluster I don’t see how a grounding issue could be our problem.

Anyway, I put everything back together and all gauges are working (but it seems they do for a little while every time I have pulled it).

I will update in a few days and let you guys know if anything has changed.

 

[AFei]

Our project never happened due to COVID resurgence. I did not stop to visit MJK.

It's too bad that the Covid-19 changed lots of stuffs. Hopefully the project can be kicked off once it's more peaceful. Count me in if test vehicle is needed.

 

[AFei]

Please keep in mind this would be specific to 03+ LX owners, since the fix for the dancing needles is unknown and the stepper motors apparently cannot be sourced. We hope to find the issue on the cluster board and be able to repair it, rather than continue to struggle to try and source the infamous stepper motors (which I don't think are the root cause of the issue anyways).

Indeed the stepper motors are not the root cause at all, at least in my case. In fact, all stepper motors are actually good and working, and this was proved by swapping them back and forth between good and bad "spots", ie between speedo (good) and tach (bad). The actual problem is the "spot", not the motor.

 

[Malleus]

Very interested in this thread, I love a good detective story. My LX is a 2000 model with nearly 3k on it, with no combinaiton meter problems whatsoever (knock on wood). I thought I'd post the 2000 EWD info, for the sake of completeness.

 

[ramangain]

Very nice @Myers thank you.

 

[MJK]

Interesting.... it is just me or the solder joints on CA7 and CA8, and to a lesser degree CA6 look suspect? By comparison CA3 and CA4 look a lot better.

@AFei - I assume your swapping involved desoldering and resoldering?

@Myers - Thanks for the photos. I can't see any caps swollen or leaking, but I'm still having a hard time not being suspicious of them. This will be interesting.

 

[jerryb]

if I was guessing, c3 and 4 weren't replaced. OR he got better at it by then. But the rest were replaced or re flowed.
There are better experts on here that know all about that though hole and smd stuff.
Why is the STAR+ right of C7 so burned looking? That right there is why I wouldn't take money for fixing through hole mount stuff on boards. I cannot solder like that consistently. His doesn't look so consistent. Who am I to judge any of that. IF it works, it works I suppose.
I wash I had better pics of my 2006 board.

 

[Myers]

Update:

Well, as expected, tach went out again. Resolder didn’t work.

Just to be clear, nothing was replaced on my gauge, only resoldering on some places.

 

[ramangain]

Where are you located?