2004 Land Cruiser Gauge Cluster FIXED! How-To (2 Viewers)

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I am trying to replace stepper motors for oil pressure and water temp for 2000 LC. I got this far and want to take apart minimum just to replace those two on the right side. Any pointers? TIA.
Edit: these have different motors. :(

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IMG_1843.jpeg
 
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GVegasG said:
I am trying to replace stepper motors for oil pressure and water temp for 2000 LC. I got this far and want to take apart minimum just to replace those two on the right side. Any pointers? TIA.
Edit: these have different motors. :(

View attachment 3322838

View attachment 3322839
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Wish I could help you man. I'm in the same boat my oil pressure works intermittently
 
Hey all, so over a year later, I finally got my LX into the local shop in Whittier mentioned in previous replies. He had my car for a day and fixed my speedometer that would either not work, or sit at 20MPH at a stop. Great guy and would recommend. His info is below:
Speedo Check in Whittier. www.speedocheckca.com His number is on his website.
 
Stik11987 said:
Hey all, so over a year later, I finally got my LX into the local shop in Whittier mentioned in previous replies. He had my car for a day and fixed my speedometer that would either not work, or sit at 20MPH at a stop. Great guy and would recommend. His info is below:
Speedo Check in Whittier. www.speedocheckca.com His number is on his website.
Click to expand...
awesome, great to hear. do you have to drop the truck off? or can you give him the cluster?
 
I have driven 00 LC without a cluster. Not sure if LX is any different.
 
daohaus said:
awesome, great to hear. do you have to drop the truck off? or can you give him the cluster?
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You can do either option. I kept telling myself i would take it out and drop the cluster off to him, but after a year of NOT doing that, i finally just made an appointment and dropped the whole car off. He had it just for the day.
 
Stik11987 said:
You can do either option. I kept telling myself i would take it out and drop the cluster off to him, but after a year of NOT doing that, i finally just made an appointment and dropped the whole car off. He had it just for the day.
Click to expand...
Nice, i like a man that knows his limits LOL
 
Stik11987 said:
Hey all, so over a year later, I finally got my LX into the local shop in Whittier mentioned in previous replies. He had my car for a day and fixed my speedometer that would either not work, or sit at 20MPH at a stop. Great guy and would recommend. His info is below:
Speedo Check in Whittier. www.speedocheckca.com His number is on his website.
Click to expand...
Awsome! What does the cost look like?
 
Stik11987 said:
Hey all, so over a year later, I finally got my LX into the local shop in Whittier mentioned in previous replies. He had my car for a day and fixed my speedometer that would either not work, or sit at 20MPH at a stop. Great guy and would recommend. His info is below:
Speedo Check in Whittier. www.speedocheckca.com His number is on his website.
Click to expand...
Still working several months later?

My '03 LX (233k miles) has mildly fluttering gauges, but they all seem to stop at the same time. All gauges either freeze or drop to zero.

Have taken the cluster out and don't see any obvious signs of damage or broken components.
 
After a few years my cluster randomly going bananas on me I finally decided to just send it out for repair. The Main driver was that for the first time ever it actually quit working for a week long period versus just here and there on occasion.

My main reason for not getting it repaired in the first place was cost it seems like most of the people out there were wanting an arm and a leg for the cluster repair… I finally went online and did some deeper homework and found this place on eBay from Missouri and sent my cluster out. Once I shipped it, it was literally back in my hands in California exactly 8 days later which I found impressive… I plugged it back in and viola all gauges works as they should now, not only that it appears they replaced all the lighting as well which I guess I never knew just how dim my cluster lighting was because it honestly looks like a brand new cluster now with how bright it is now…

I’m posting this because admittedly if I’m being honest sending my cluster out to somebody from eBay was a little nerve-racking so I just wanted to post my experience with this place to let you know it’s legit.

Automotive Circuit Solutions was very responsive from start to finish which intern made me feel pretty comfortable. Their ad on eBay says GX 470 but as is in my case they will also do LX470 as well. In addition to the convenience of it all with shipping and everything it was less than $300 and also comes with a lifetime warranty for their work which made me even more comfortable.

I’ll report back in a few months to confirm everything is still all good, In the meantime if your cluster is not working maybe give these guys a try.

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05' LC. Replaced gas, temp, rpm and amp, couple from amazon, couple from ebay. All work now, the only 2 not replaced is speedo and oil press, still OK. Thanks to OP @dchilds for parts and instructions. Easy job w some basic tools I got from Amazon years ago for a 1500 silverado stepper motor replacement..

No need to pay for it to get it fixed. A few bucks in cheap tools and a YT video on how to solder and it's DONE
 
Patron100LC said:
05' LC. Replaced gas, temp, rpm and amp, couple from amazon, couple from ebay. All work now, the only 2 not replaced is speedo and oil press, still OK. Thanks to OP @dchilds for parts and instructions. Easy job w some basic tools I got from Amazon years ago for a 1500 silverado stepper motor replacement..

No need to pay for it to get it fixed. A few bucks in cheap tools and a YT video on how to solder and it's DONE
Click to expand...
Yeah I did go through that read as well and considered giving it a go but one issue from my understanding was that the LX stepper motors differ slightly from the LC and weren’t available with the little LED lights at the tips (small detail in know). In addition to that I’m convinced it was not the individual stepper motors in my case that needed replaced. I was thinking it is probably some $.25 capacitor or resistor or a compromised solder joint or something as with my instrument cluster at times half of the gauges would work perfectly while the other half went bananas, then other times all of them would go bananas followed up by all of them working just fine, then sometimes only one of them went bananas. And really for years my instrument panel work just fine probably 95% of the time which made it not such a big issue to me until they completely quit working for an entire week… just really random.

I’m a pretty solid DIY’er but definitely not an small part electrical guru so for me it was definitely just easier to farm this one out… Fingers crossed that I won’t have any more issues and I will check in later on to confirm
I actually took pictures of the board and everything before I sent it off as a curiosity to see what they soldered or replace in it however when I got the cluster back it is sealed up with a sticker that voids the lifetime warranty if pulled off so I have no way of looking inside now to see what they did… Hopefully I never need to and this issue is behind me now lol
 
$20 a piece! :bang:

Just a reminder to LX owner. The stepper motor will ONLY work for LC and will NOT work for LX without significant modification.
 
Hi guys

I was able to fix my LX470 2004 gauge cluster.

So the issue was that on start up needles were shaking with some noises behind dash and after couple seconds they came alive. Except tach and couple other random ones. But tach needle was always dead.

The issue with my particular gauge cluster were stepper motors. If you dissasemble the motor, you will notice that there is circlular magnet with plastic sleeve inside. Because of the aging sleeve starts to slip inside the magnet. Once I superglued sleeve to the magnet, my tach came back alive.
1717951567215.png

Alternatively you CAN use those stepper motors from amazon, but you would need to move upper cover with springs (carefully) to the new motor, bought from amazon. There are only 3 clips holding stepper motor cover, so it was not a big deal. Just don't rush and take your time.

Assembling stepper motor is tricky due to the way gears positioned, but my solution was to put the motor cover with needle gear and middle gear on the table, and then once I aligned shafts with opening with motor shafts, clip it all back together (my wife's idea). Ensure to align gears properly as per sketch below and after assembly rotate the motor by the disk where the lighting spring is attached to, and compare it other motors. Force and rotational range should be identical.

1717951797042.png


Additionally, you don't need to fully unsolder the motor from the board to glue the magnet. Full unsoldering required only if you decide to replace the motor.
The motor cover is being held in place by those 4 soldering points and plactic clips on sides. I unsoldered those 4 points, got a thick angled needle and unclipped stepper motor cover to glue the sleeve to the magnet.

1717951291013.png


After assembly check coil continuity with multimeter to ensure that you did not damage coils (I check with measuring resistance, should around 235 or so) via points circled red.

1717951980088.png


And now I am enjoying working tachometer.

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