Easy 93-94 Ls400 $3.00 Cluster Flicker And Gas Needle Fix

[Rice4eveR]

REVISED*For people with some technical knowledge only* Do this at your own risk!*

Hi... My name is Rice. I wasn't gonna pay 1200 bux to get my 93 ls400 Lexus cluster to stop flickering and my gas gauge working again! Here is my permanent fix. It cost me $3 or $4 bucks! If this thread is helpful to you then show your support by going to my website and downloading my music! its totally free! www.Rice4eveR.com

Here is my cluster. I just took it out and I'am ready to get to work! The whole job took me 12-15 mins but I was a technician for like 15 years so please take your time!

Back of the cluster. take the white plastic cover off. It is held together with 10 or so screws!

I bought these capacitors from Frys electronics. If you don't have a Frys near you then hop your !Removed! on www.Frys.com and order them by the part numbers provided below!

The labels with prices and part numbers

Unsolder (from the top side) capacitor from c212 that is located on the small board and replace with a 10 uf (10mfd) 16 volt capacitor.

Do the same for c142 and c147 located on the big board! C142 is to be replaced with new capacitor 4.7 Uf 25 volt and c147 is to be replaced with 10uf 50 volt.

Super small

[Rice4eveR]

Bend and cut the legs into feet like the one below

Don't burn yourself with the iron!

Yeah like the pic says... I screwed up and ripped off the copper lead rushing, so I took a probe and scratched the green coating off the board so that I could have a new spot to solder

Looks great and doesn't flicker anymore, cold or hot! I hope I don't make the dudes that charge hella money on eBay mad... but ****um! half of them charge to much for the service anywaY!

click on the little album cover in the pic...!

As always I had a blast teaching you somethin' new!

Thank you for reading!

Rice Aka Rice4eveR -Bullrun season 1 team civic-

[Bali26]

This should be a sticky.

[steve2006]

Nice article and well illustrated.

One thing to remember which was not mentioned is the capacitors must be put in the correct way around (+/-) if you look at the close up picture of one of the capacitors you will see a + mark on one side this must be matched to the same polarity on the board.

As Rice4eveR says even with 15 years electronic repair experience you can still have problems lifting the copper print especially removing components of this type (surface mount devices/ SMDs).

If you are not confident with soldering/unsoldering leave it to the experts as you could create more problems than you had to start with.

A option might be to buy the parts, remove the dash and disassemble it to the boards then get a local TV/Radio repair shop to fit the parts for you.

[cduluk]

Nice work and nice tutorial! I always wondered what companies like lextech did to fix this, now we know!

I had negative dealings with lextech a while back when i sold a fix on ebay for the ES clusters. They threatened to sue because they have a patent for ALL repairs to Lexus clusters.

I hope you run them out of business!

[curiousB]

Nice work and nice tutorial! I always wondered what companies like lextech did to fix this, now we know!

I had negative dealings with lextech a while back when i sold a fix on ebay for the ES clusters. They threatened to sue because they have a patent for ALL repairs to Lexus clusters.

I hope you run them out of business!

You can't patent a repair. You can patent an idea or concept (but it has to be novel and unique). Its doubtful a service company would do this as they are unlikely to survive the patent process.

You can have a license to be the exclusive repair organization for Lexus. That doesn't limit others from repairing, it just means you are the "authorized" repair depot.

I concur this is very well laid out tutorial. Nice job to Rice4eveR. Those types of capacitors dry out with heat and if they are stressed in the circuit design.

[ronasper]

Very interesting article by Rice.

I have the display repaired as described by him.

Works fine now. Another small problem. The tachometer and speedometer are sometimes off.

I want to replace all defective capacitors can go, but I can not see what a normal capacitor or an electrolyte. Who can tell me this.

Thanks,

Ron.

Sorry for my English English language!

[colemansleds]

Would you mind sending pics and any other helpful tools or tips. I wasn't able to click on jpegs

[sha4000]

 

Would you mind sending pics and any other helpful tools or tips. I wasn't able to click on jpegs

Those links are no good since the thread is over 7 years old. Just google the thread title and you can find the fix on the web.

[CELSI0R]

Here is a copy of the tutorial from an archived version on ClubLexus. As a precaution, make sure you read through everything before attempting.

------

REVISED *For people with some technical knowledge only* Do this at your own risk!*

Hi, My name is Rice. I wasn't going to pay $1200 to get my 93 LS 400 Lexus cluster to stop flickering and my gas gauge working again, so here is my permanent fix. It cost me 3 or 4 bucks!

Here is my cluster. I just took it out and I'am ready to get to work! The whole job took me 12-15 mins, but I was a technician for like 15 years so please take your time!


Back of the cluster. take the white plastic cover off. It is held together with 10 or so screws!


I bought these capacitors from Frys electronics. If you don't have a Frys near you then hop your !Removed! on www.Frys.com and order them by the part numbers provided below!


The labels with prices and part numbers


Unsolder (from the top side) capacitor from c212 that is located on the small board and replace with a 10 uf (10mfd) 16 volt capacitor.
 

Do the same for c142 and c147 located on the big board! C142 is to be replaced with new capacitor 4.7 Uf 25 volt and c147 is to be replaced with 10uf 50 volt.


This capacitor is super small:


Bend and cut the legs into feet like the one below





Now, solder on the new capacitor, but don't burn yourself with the iron!
 

Like the picture below says, I screwed up and ripped off the copper lead by rushing, so I took a probe and scratched the green coating off the board so that I could have a new spot to solder. Take your time, because the copper leads are fragile. You do not want to make this mistake.


Looks great and doesn't flicker anymore, cold or hot! I hope I don't make the dudes that charge hella money on eBay mad.


As always I had a blast teaching you something new!

Thank you for reading!
Rice

------
Source:

Part 1:
https://www.clublexus.com/forums/ls-1st-and-2nd-gen-1990-2000/514164-easy-93-94-ls400-3-00-cluster-flicker-and-gas-needle-fix-6.html#post8949589

Part 2:
https://www.clublexus.com/forums/ls-1st-and-2nd-gen-1990-2000/514164-easy-93-94-ls400-3-00-cluster-flicker-and-gas-needle-fix-7.html#post8949597

Part 3:
https://www.clublexus.com/forums/ls-1st-and-2nd-gen-1990-2000/514164-easy-93-94-ls400-3-00-cluster-flicker-and-gas-needle-fix-7.html#post8949601