Has anyone superglued the copper contacts down on the circuit board ?

[AuroraGirl]

I will have to look for that radio bulb , if they did not just cut the wires. It seems like there is an orange wire loose under that area.

I meant to tell you that even when all the bulbs are going full my 55 has that dim spot, too.

Thats funny, I dont think the bulb worked but to be honest its been so long maybe its a discoloration or failure of the other light bulbs to reach? beats me haha.

I can go look at the bulb on the radio and see what the wiring colors are.

 

[Ontheboulder]

My

I will have to look for that radio bulb , if they did not just cut the wires. It seems like there is an orange wire loose under that area.

I meant to tell you that even when all the bulbs are going full my 55 has that dim spot, too.

My 87 had 2 wires in the radio harness that were part of the radio lights, a brown and a gray wire, I assume that one was the light and the other was the dimmer for the radio.

 

[Goldie Driver]

Hah ha - the 3rd path !

Dunno if it will hold, but good parts are on order.

Bought a soldering iron kit that had solder as I could not find a iron at Wally World and Northern Tools had irons but no loose solder.

Dam worldwide shortages...



At any rate, here's what I did. No, I don't know how to solder.



Eff it- a real Hail Mary.

It works...



(For now. I am pretty realistic. )

That's a piece of stripped wire glued down to the cluster and the one end was soldered to the newly exposed piece of trace that I did tonight.

 

[Ellie Niner]

Just thinking more on your bypass idea - maybe using something like this and wires soldered to a bulb holder.

You must be registered for see images attach

Any ideas as to where I could tap in ? The fiber optic to the ashtray uses a hard wired bulb holder, and another thought would be the wiper switch wires.

But, if there is something in the harness easy to hit ( other than the big rectangular plug ) that you know of offhand - ?


Thanks !

I'm usually not a fan of those ScotchLok style connectors, though they should work adequately behind a dash. I'd think that your wiper switch illumination would be the closest thing to tap into, though if your cluster/ashtray fiber optic socket is hard wired (mine is powered of the printed circuit like the other cluster bulbs), that'd work too. I'm not sure if you have the older style fuse panel that has both the turn signal and hazard flashers on it, or the newer one that moved the hazard flasher to a separate sub-panel to the right of the steering column, but I think both have auxiliary terminals to plug into the dash lighting circuit. I have the later style, and it has three spare dash light terminals... they're marked with a green stripe; the illumination for my transfer case shifter plugs into one of them... it has a green connector and a grey wire. All of the dash illumination has a grey hot wire and a black ground.

Either way, it sounds like you got the problem fixed...

 

[Goldie Driver]

@Ellie Niner - great info - thanks !

My fiber optic holder is not hard wired - I was wrong. And as best I can tell my fuse panel is all one piece with one flasher top left and one bottom right.

And, the lower one has a plug with what I assume to be an aux terminal.

Don't know if you can see it in the pic.

At any rate, this gives me, or the next poor schmuck that has to do this great info, so thanks !

 

[Snoots]

Hah ha - the 3rd path !

Dunno if it will hold, but good parts are on order.

Bought a soldering iron kit that had solder as I could not find a iron at Wally World and Northern Tools had irons but no loose solder.

Dam worldwide shortages...



At any rate, here's what I did. No, I don't know how to solder.



Eff it- a real Hail Mary.

It works...



(For now. I am pretty realistic. )

That's a piece of stripped wire glued down to the cluster and the one end was soldered to the newly exposed piece of trace that I did tonight.

For someone that says they don't know how to solder, you did a darn good job! I've seen a whole lot worse.

 

[Doppleganger]

I know it would be time consuming but has anyone ever just hard wired one of these clusters? I have had 4N clusters and tail lamps with these soft printed boards that were worthless and problematic new out of the box. Just got tired of messing with it and hard wired them (like the much older ones used to be). Took awhile but no more issues - at all.

 

[Goldie Driver]

I know it would be time consuming but has anyone ever just hard wired one of these clusters? I have had 4N clusters and tail lamps with these soft printed boards that were worthless and problematic new out of the box. Just got tired of messing with it and hard wired them (like the much older ones used to be). Took awhile but no more issues - at all.

Might be worth it.

One of my prior failures- well, in all fairness I was screwed before I started with that trace being gone.

I did not know - this was before I pulled the cluster.

Better explanation- I cut pieces of the trace out of the old board, folded them over, and glued them to the bulb holder.

Figured I would increase my swept area.

Who knows - might have worked had there been copper for them to contact.