Toaster Posted December 13, 2003 Share Posted December 13, 2003 I have a 1994 Lexus LS400 with about 85k miles. I bought the car this spring, and has been a great car all summer long. However, since the weather has shifted here in Texas, and now were getting our cold snaps I've got a strange situation I've never seen before. When its cold outside <50*, the dashboard instrument lights do not come on, and the lights of the stereo display, climate control center too... all these lights do not come on until the car warms up... Sometimes 3-5 minutes, the other day it took nearly 20+ mins before they came on. When they do finally pop on, its quite a light show- the needle and such start to blink, then ba - ba - boom! they click on. While all these lights are off, the gas gauge doesnt work either. The speedometer works because if its daylight outside- you can see the needle move, but the gas gauge stays down. The display on the right on the dashboard, the radio/climate control- this all "works" you can see the LCD numbers- but the green backlight is not on- and then boom they'll all pop on at the same time (dash/backlights of the climate/radio) I called my local dealer, and he said he had never seen this issue before... He's seen something similar where the dash (needles and whatnot) wouldn't come on- but he said that would have no effect on the climate/radio section to the right of the driver. (where my situation- its all tied in together) The dealer also explained to me that the situation he has seen (no dash lights) is related to a bad circuit/logic board and its about an $800 fix! Needless to say- I can not afford that- especially this time of the year. He suggested it might be a bad dimmer switch? but the only way to tell for sure was to take it in and run diag's on it, at whatever they're rate was (expensive- I don't remember exactly I was a little stuck on that $800 shocker) Anyone have any suggestions? This car- while used, was babied by its 1 previous owner... I'm the second owner- the car is in near immaculate condition. I'm really shocked to see anything wrong with this car. Please give me suggestions or things to try- I'm at al 100% loss of ideas toaster@pobox.com Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VMF Posted December 13, 2003 Share Posted December 13, 2003 there was a thread b4 chrash about this. i hope cole carter will see this thread and repost his info about how to fix it. as i rememer you have to remove the intrsument cluster and change couple or ICs on the back of it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tansupplyman Posted December 13, 2003 Share Posted December 13, 2003 Cole's response----this is due to Curt Oberg saving it B4/crash !!!!!!! TKs again, Curt. Now guys, copy & paste whereever you want just in case. New Club Member Group: Members Posts: 9 Member No.: 4595 Joined: 22-October 03 Location: SUNNYVALE, CALIFORNIA Referrals: 0 Referred by: N/A Hello Folks, I think I have an answer to the Instrument Cluster Light and fuel gauge problem on older LS400's. If you have the common problem with the instrument lights whereby they don't come on right away when you start the car in the morning when its cold .... then its probably an electrolytic capacitor located at C212 on the small PC board on the back of your instrument cluster. If you also have the common problem whereby your fuel gauge takes a long time to read the fuel level in your tank after starting your car in the morning and/or the reading is much lower than the true amount of gas in your tank, then its probably two electrolytic caps on the "Big" PC board on the back of your intrument cluster. One of the caps is located at C142 on the big board... and the other is located at .. C147 . The interesting thing is that these caps are all the same style. They are very small (Low quality) electrolytic caps. They are housed in little metal cans ... with very short leads .. although they are not true surface mount caps. I tested a bunch of caps on the small board and found that only this type of capacitor was disfunctional .... and interestingly enough .... all the caps of this style were bad on both boards ... (A total of 3) .... If you are scientifically inclined .. I need to warn you that these capacitors often do not "crap out" unless they are cold .... If you read the capacity at room temp they may or may not seem fine ... But when you put a chiller on them ... then the capacity reading starts to approach zero ... What you should do is replace them with better quality caps .... either bipolar ... or ceramic .... or titanium ... You can go higher in voltage and also higher in UF .. it doesn't matter ... except for maybe the one located at C142 ... I am not sure .. but this one may provide some kind of timing function ... the other two are clearly just filters .... (IE: for Ripple)... C142 (big Board) was 4.7 UF, 25V C147 (Also on the big board) was 10 UF, 50V C212 (Small Board) 10 UF, 16 V Now both problems are fixed .. LamSV was very helpful in getting me focused .... I would still be stuck without him ... Remember .. that you need to disconnect the battery before you start removing stuff .. and wait a couple of minutes ... I made the mistake of not doing this and my Airbag warning light would not go out ... So I removed the little light bulb that warns you ... I am not sure my airbags work after 10 years .. but my guess is .. they work or not ... regardless of whether there is a bulb in the warning light circuit ... This problem is very easy to fix for anybody comfortable around a soldering iron .. and much less expensive than having the dealer replace your boards ... (My cost was about $1 worth of parts versus $1200 if the dealer fixes it) .... the labor involved was mostly in removing than reinstalling the instrument cluster ... (About 1 hour) ... Replacing the 3 capacitors is about 45 minutes worth of work .... Best of luck to anyone with the problem ..... Cole Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
michaelsn Posted December 13, 2003 Share Posted December 13, 2003 If you are not very skilled with a soldering iron then the cheaper alternative to going to the dealer would be: 1. take the instrument cluster out (we have instructions for that if needed) and ship it to: Electronics Master Repairs Lexus Department 2131 Pleasant Hill Road Suite 135 Duluth, Georgia 30096-2303 Here's their curent offer on ebay. A few members have used this service. http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eBayISAP...gory=46100&rd=1 2. take the instrument cluster out and ship the circuit boards to Jim Walker. He is a member of this forum and his service is reliable. Here is his current offer on ebay: http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eBayISAP...item=2448271736 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Toaster Posted December 15, 2003 Author Share Posted December 15, 2003 WOW... Thanks guys! I knew this was definitely the place to ask this question! :D Ok- now I have a couple of stupid questions: 1. does anyone know if this will address the issue with the climate control & radio backlights ??? Everything comes back on at the same time- so I'm gonna guess YES? 2. Where are the instructions for removing the instrument cluster (I did this once on my 88 BMW 3'series... I HATE THAT PART OF THIS. The soldering iron doesnt scare me any- I've been soldering since I was a kid, adding ram chips and switches to my old Atari computers! :P Thats a blast from the past for you old timers like me!) 3. Since I did buy the car used- I'm guessing the factory Pioneer sound system has some kind of "code" when the power is removed (ala: taking the cables off the battery first)... IF there is a code- I DO NOT HAVE IT , so what do I do when I put the power back to the battery? Can I set the code NOW before I remove power? or what? (I got the manual for the car, and the maintenance book with the stamps in it- but thats it- nothing else ) 4. Any links to pictures (if they are available) would help reassure me I'm doing the right cap's in the right places ;) THANKS AGAIN FOR THIS INFO! -Toaster toaster@pobox.com Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
michaelsn Posted December 15, 2003 Share Posted December 15, 2003 1. (From a previous post which I can't remember) I believe it does... if you change all the caps listed in the previous post. 2. Read pinned post on "Replacing Burnt Out Needles In Instrument Panel" or click here: (thanks to Jim Walker) http://www.lexusownersclub.com/Lexus_Circu...ard_Removal.pdf 3. Sorry, I don't have the pioneer unit on mine, but I don't think you have to worry about the code if you disconnect the battery first. If you're lucky, the previous owner probably didn't set the code on it. 4. (Thanks to ukamath of Club Lexus) http://www.clublexus.com/forums/showthread...12&pagenumber=6 Take heed of tansupplyman's post: "Remember .. that you need to disconnect the battery before you start removing stuff .. and wait a couple of minutes ... I made the mistake of not doing this and my Airbag warning light would not go out ..." If you forget...there's also a thread on the fix...sounds like fun. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
90LS400Lexus Posted December 16, 2003 Share Posted December 16, 2003 Yes, it seems as if you have the common instrument cluster light problem. I have never heard of the cluster illumination linked with the climate control display illumination. The cluster/needle illumination and LCD & backlighting in my 1990 LS400 still work like new, but I guess it is possible that they have already been repaired by the previous owner. Not to deter you from this great Lexus site, but here is more information about the instrument clusters: http://www.clublexus.com/forums/showthread...&threadid=40025 Good luck. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paul Sherman Posted November 1, 2004 Share Posted November 1, 2004 This listserv has already made my day! The weather just started getting chilly in St. Louis and yesterday morning and this morning the display did the 'delayed flicker on' (reminded me of the fluorescent lamps in my garage in winter) Lo and behold, it is dying caps and you all had the solution! Thanks bunches! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wandawoods Posted November 1, 2004 Share Posted November 1, 2004 This listserv has already made my day!The weather just started getting chilly in St. Louis and yesterday morning and this morning the display did the 'delayed flicker on' (reminded me of the fluorescent lamps in my garage in winter) Lo and behold, it is dying caps and you all had the solution! Thanks bunches! ← you can also refer to this thread: http://us.lexusownersclub.com/forums/index...showtopic=5822& if you are handy enough to replace all 3 electrolytic capacitors (C142/C147 /C212), it should be able to take care of the lighting and fuel gauge problems. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
90LS400Lexus Posted November 2, 2004 Share Posted November 2, 2004 Since this was brought up again- I will update my reply. I have since sold my LS400, but I did finally develop a problem with my needle (speedometer) before I sold it. I hit a large pothole while on the loop entering the freeway and I noticed that 3/4 of the needle was off. I guess it cracked the needle or something. I was very disgusted. I think that was the last straw when I decided to sell my car. I knew it was too good to be true to have a 90 LS400 with 235K to have perfect instrument lights. All others worked fine however, as well as the actual backlighting- even last winter when it was cool. Yes, it seems as if you have the common instrument cluster light problem. I have never heard of the cluster illumination linked with the climate control display illumination. The cluster/needle illumination and LCD & backlighting in my 1990 LS400 still work like new, but I guess it is possible that they have already been repaired by the previous owner. Not to deter you from this great Lexus site, but here is more information about the instrument clusters: http://www.clublexus.com/forums/showthread...&threadid=40025 Good luck. ← Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
michaelsn Posted November 16, 2004 Share Posted November 16, 2004 I finally got around to yanking the cluster out and replacing the capacitors. Here's some pictures. See #551 to #557 in the gallery. Now if someone can just tell us how to fix the 1. speedometer and tachmeter problem and 2. the partially lit needles (and what is that 'conductive' stuff that needs to go behind it). Michael Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Toaster Posted December 3, 2004 Author Share Posted December 3, 2004 I'll know 100% certain tomorrow if my specific issue is gone, but so far all signs point to yes. The instrument panel fired right up after I replaced all 3 caps with new ones. (if you look at the dates of my post- I waited almost a year before I attempted this, mainly because the weather changed here so I didn't need to do it :P) Removing the surface mount caps was simple- you have to break them off a little at a time until you get to the traces/connectors on the bottom- if you just "pull" them out, I'd bet you run the risk of damaging the traces on the PCB. so be careful with that. The repair is sooooo simple- after you get the cluster out, you only have to remove the white cover from the back and you can do all the work without disasembling the rest of the cluster :) THANKS FOR THE HELP GUYS. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sean nguyen Posted December 29, 2004 Share Posted December 29, 2004 Cole's response----this is due to Curt Oberg saving it B4/crash !!!!!!! TKs again, Curt. Now guys, copy & paste whereever you want just in case. New Club Member Group: Members Posts: 9 Member No.: 4595 Joined: 22-October 03 Location: SUNNYVALE, CALIFORNIA Referrals: 0 Referred by: N/A Hello Folks, I think I have an answer to the Instrument Cluster Light and fuel gauge problem on older LS400's. If you have the common problem with the instrument lights whereby they don't come on right away when you start the car in the morning when its cold .... then its probably an electrolytic capacitor located at C212 on the small PC board on the back of your instrument cluster. If you also have the common problem whereby your fuel gauge takes a long time to read the fuel level in your tank after starting your car in the morning and/or the reading is much lower than the true amount of gas in your tank, then its probably two electrolytic caps on the "Big" PC board on the back of your intrument cluster. One of the caps is located at C142 on the big board... and the other is located at .. C147 . The interesting thing is that these caps are all the same style. They are very small (Low quality) electrolytic caps. They are housed in little metal cans ... with very short leads .. although they are not true surface mount caps. I tested a bunch of caps on the small board and found that only this type of capacitor was disfunctional .... and interestingly enough .... all the caps of this style were bad on both boards ... (A total of 3) .... If you are scientifically inclined .. I need to warn you that these capacitors often do not "crap out" unless they are cold .... If you read the capacity at room temp they may or may not seem fine ... But when you put a chiller on them ... then the capacity reading starts to approach zero ... What you should do is replace them with better quality caps .... either bipolar ... or ceramic .... or titanium ... You can go higher in voltage and also higher in UF .. it doesn't matter ... except for maybe the one located at C142 ... I am not sure .. but this one may provide some kind of timing function ... the other two are clearly just filters .... (IE: for Ripple)... C142 (big Board) was 4.7 UF, 25V C147 (Also on the big board) was 10 UF, 50V C212 (Small Board) 10 UF, 16 V Now both problems are fixed .. LamSV was very helpful in getting me focused .... I would still be stuck without him ... Remember .. that you need to disconnect the battery before you start removing stuff .. and wait a couple of minutes ... I made the mistake of not doing this and my Airbag warning light would not go out ... So I removed the little light bulb that warns you ... I am not sure my airbags work after 10 years .. but my guess is .. they work or not ... regardless of whether there is a bulb in the warning light circuit ... This problem is very easy to fix for anybody comfortable around a soldering iron .. and much less expensive than having the dealer replace your boards ... (My cost was about $1 worth of parts versus $1200 if the dealer fixes it) .... the labor involved was mostly in removing than reinstalling the instrument cluster ... (About 1 hour) ... Replacing the 3 capacitors is about 45 minutes worth of work .... Best of luck to anyone with the problem ..... Cole ← Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sean nguyen Posted December 29, 2004 Share Posted December 29, 2004 Cole's response----this is due to Curt Oberg saving it B4/crash !!!!!!! TKs again, Curt. Now guys, copy & paste whereever you want just in case. New Club Member Group: Members Posts: 9 Member No.: 4595 Joined: 22-October 03 Location: SUNNYVALE, CALIFORNIA Referrals: 0 Referred by: N/A Hello Folks, I think I have an answer to the Instrument Cluster Light and fuel gauge problem on older LS400's. If you have the common problem with the instrument lights whereby they don't come on right away when you start the car in the morning when its cold .... then its probably an electrolytic capacitor located at C212 on the small PC board on the back of your instrument cluster. If you also have the common problem whereby your fuel gauge takes a long time to read the fuel level in your tank after starting your car in the morning and/or the reading is much lower than the true amount of gas in your tank, then its probably two electrolytic caps on the "Big" PC board on the back of your intrument cluster. One of the caps is located at C142 on the big board... and the other is located at .. C147 . The interesting thing is that these caps are all the same style. They are very small (Low quality) electrolytic caps. They are housed in little metal cans ... with very short leads .. although they are not true surface mount caps. I tested a bunch of caps on the small board and found that only this type of capacitor was disfunctional .... and interestingly enough .... all the caps of this style were bad on both boards ... (A total of 3) .... If you are scientifically inclined .. I need to warn you that these capacitors often do not "crap out" unless they are cold .... If you read the capacity at room temp they may or may not seem fine ... But when you put a chiller on them ... then the capacity reading starts to approach zero ... What you should do is replace them with better quality caps .... either bipolar ... or ceramic .... or titanium ... You can go higher in voltage and also higher in UF .. it doesn't matter ... except for maybe the one located at C142 ... I am not sure .. but this one may provide some kind of timing function ... the other two are clearly just filters .... (IE: for Ripple)... C142 (big Board) was 4.7 UF, 25V C147 (Also on the big board) was 10 UF, 50V C212 (Small Board) 10 UF, 16 V Now both problems are fixed .. LamSV was very helpful in getting me focused .... I would still be stuck without him ... Remember .. that you need to disconnect the battery before you start removing stuff .. and wait a couple of minutes ... I made the mistake of not doing this and my Airbag warning light would not go out ... So I removed the little light bulb that warns you ... I am not sure my airbags work after 10 years .. but my guess is .. they work or not ... regardless of whether there is a bulb in the warning light circuit ... This problem is very easy to fix for anybody comfortable around a soldering iron .. and much less expensive than having the dealer replace your boards ... (My cost was about $1 worth of parts versus $1200 if the dealer fixes it) .... the labor involved was mostly in removing than reinstalling the instrument cluster ... (About 1 hour) ... Replacing the 3 capacitors is about 45 minutes worth of work .... Best of luck to anyone with the problem ..... Cole ← Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ravi Posted January 19, 2005 Share Posted January 19, 2005 Hello All, I just changed the above mentioned caps and, as paranoid as I was in the beginning, it was a relatively painless 2 hour job. The hardest thing was to get the cluster out from the tight compartment and, of course, unplugging the 3 connectors. *****Thanks to all who provided all the valuable information on steps and diagrams.**** Removing the capacitors were tricky and one of them (the biggest one), I pulled on the cap before it was completely snapped off and the circuit wire ripped a bit but did not break. I thought I had a made a bigger mess but once I soldered the cap on and put everything back in, it worked like a charm. Suggestion: One thing that you may want to consider is putting masking tape around the outer trim of the cluster compartment and around the top of the steering column to avoid cosmetic scratches when removing the instrumentation. By the way, since 4.7uF at 25V was hard to find, I used 4.7uF at 35V and it worked fine. Thanks again and good luck to all who wants to do this by themselves. Ravi Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
adanesh Posted April 25, 2005 Share Posted April 25, 2005 Despite all my fear of the unknown, this fix worked. It took me about 1 hour to take the dash off and fix the capacitors. Please be careful when removing old capacitors. Make sure you remove them slowly and carefully or you might brake the solder points and the printed circuit off the board. I did this on C142 and had a bear of a time soldering and securing the new capacitor to the circuit wires. I recommend holding the black base and taking the capacitor off first before removing the black base. Thanks to Cole. He just saved me around $1200. The parts are about 80 cents. If you live in So. Cal, Ford Electronics in Buena park or Marvac in Costa Mesa are your best bet. Lee Cole's response----this is due to Curt Oberg saving it B4/crash !!!!!!! TKs again, Curt. Now guys, copy & paste whereever you want just in case. New Club Member Group: Members Posts: 9 Member No.: 4595 Joined: 22-October 03 Location: SUNNYVALE, CALIFORNIA Referrals: 0 Referred by: N/A Hello Folks, I think I have an answer to the Instrument Cluster Light and fuel gauge problem on older LS400's. If you have the common problem with the instrument lights whereby they don't come on right away when you start the car in the morning when its cold .... then its probably an electrolytic capacitor located at C212 on the small PC board on the back of your instrument cluster. If you also have the common problem whereby your fuel gauge takes a long time to read the fuel level in your tank after starting your car in the morning and/or the reading is much lower than the true amount of gas in your tank, then its probably two electrolytic caps on the "Big" PC board on the back of your intrument cluster. One of the caps is located at C142 on the big board... and the other is located at .. C147 . The interesting thing is that these caps are all the same style. They are very small (Low quality) electrolytic caps. They are housed in little metal cans ... with very short leads .. although they are not true surface mount caps. I tested a bunch of caps on the small board and found that only this type of capacitor was disfunctional .... and interestingly enough .... all the caps of this style were bad on both boards ... (A total of 3) .... If you are scientifically inclined .. I need to warn you that these capacitors often do not "crap out" unless they are cold .... If you read the capacity at room temp they may or may not seem fine ... But when you put a chiller on them ... then the capacity reading starts to approach zero ... What you should do is replace them with better quality caps .... either bipolar ... or ceramic .... or titanium ... You can go higher in voltage and also higher in UF .. it doesn't matter ... except for maybe the one located at C142 ... I am not sure .. but this one may provide some kind of timing function ... the other two are clearly just filters .... (IE: for Ripple)... C142 (big Board) was 4.7 UF, 25V C147 (Also on the big board) was 10 UF, 50V C212 (Small Board) 10 UF, 16 V Now both problems are fixed .. LamSV was very helpful in getting me focused .... I would still be stuck without him ... Remember .. that you need to disconnect the battery before you start removing stuff .. and wait a couple of minutes ... I made the mistake of not doing this and my Airbag warning light would not go out ... So I removed the little light bulb that warns you ... I am not sure my airbags work after 10 years .. but my guess is .. they work or not ... regardless of whether there is a bulb in the warning light circuit ... This problem is very easy to fix for anybody comfortable around a soldering iron .. and much less expensive than having the dealer replace your boards ... (My cost was about $1 worth of parts versus $1200 if the dealer fixes it) .... the labor involved was mostly in removing than reinstalling the instrument cluster ... (About 1 hour) ... Replacing the 3 capacitors is about 45 minutes worth of work .... Best of luck to anyone with the problem ..... Cole ← ← Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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