[V8] intermittent dash lights and other weirdness

[Karl D. Middlebrooks]

Since we're talking about light weirdness...

Both of my 90's have oddities with the center console lights on the push 
buttons (rear defrost, fog lamps, etc). Sometimes the icons light up 
correctly, and sometimes they don't. If they do light up correctly, a good 
way to get them to go completely out is to press a button (any button will 
do). Not only will the indicator light not light up, the light for the icon 
almost always goes out. Sometimes, if I get turn the car off and back on, 
the icons will light up again, and in the case of the fog lamps, the 
indicator lights will show the correct status. Mashing a single button at 
this point inevitably turns off all of the indicator lights (and usually the 
icon lights) that are currently lit. My passengers and I take bets in frosty 
whether about whether or not I've managed to get the rear defrost turned on 
because of this.

And the light for the climate control head in the 93 is totally dead, so as 
long as I want to make temperature changes in the cabin during daylight 
hours, it's fine; otherwise, it's kind of a crapshoot.

--------------------------------------------------
From: "Mike Arman" <Armanmik at earthlink.net>
Sent: Monday, February 02, 2009 5:26 PM
To: <v8 at audifans.com>
Subject: [V8] intermittent dash lights and other weirdness

>
>
> Whacking the top of the console may fix the dash lights (and/or the fuel 
> gauge and/or the temp gauge
> and/or the autocheck and/or the whatever) for a few moments, but the fix 
> is to remove the instrument
> cluster and check for cold solder joints at the inter-board connection 
> pins.
>
> Guarantee you'll find some, and some of the pins may actually be loose - a 
> few seconds with a
> soldering pencil (be careful, this stuff is expensive!) will cure this and 
> all kinds of other
> obscure electrical ailments. BTDT, works a charm.
>
> After you've fixed the cold solder joints, then add some contact enhancer. 
> Just using the contact
> enhancer without fixing the cold solder joints is like putting a band-aid 
> on a concussion - maybe it
> looks better, but you'll still have to go back in all over again anyway, 
> so you might as well do a
> complete and proper job the first time. Do it right = do it once.
>
> Besides, this is your golden opportunity to change the couple of dash 
> lights that burned out decades
> ago and you didn't want to go to the trouble of pulling the whole cluster 
> to replace just one tiny
> light bulb.
>
> Best Regards,
>
> Mike Arman
> 90V8Q
>
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