Anybody got any Ideas about what might make my '89 dash cluster so bright all the sudden? It's been about a week now and the dash has one brightness: way too bright! I can't hardly see the gages: fuel level, engine temp/voltage, oil pressure/oil temp., fuel range/trip or MPG. If I cover the light cell the dash does dim but only a little. Day or night it's just so bright.....If I wear polarized sunglasses I can see the gages just fine....they all work fine......I can't wear these sunglasses forever.....help!

 

Do they dim if you use the dimmer on the headlight switch?

 

Yes it works - but the display is too bright at any dimming level on the center fuel/voltage/temp cluster. There are no other strange issues with the panel other than the brightness issue. See video below for dimmer example.

 

thats weird

 

That photovoltaic sensor may be the issue.I would assume the gurus built in a failsafe where if it goes wrong you get full bright rather than nothing.Just guessing tho'.

 

......your video sorta sucked as it was a bit dark but, besides that, when i heard your engine rev up a bit, it appeared that the lights got brighter..am i wrong?.......if you can manage to read your volt gauge display on the display, what does it say?.....also, take a voltage reading at your battery and from your alternator to ground......

 

The video does suck I agree....the engine didn't rev up ~ I just turned the headlights "ON" which is why the dash lights got brighter. Using my polarized sunglasses the battery voltage reads 13.4 on the display.

I'll pull the dash tomorrow and look at the photo cell thingy or maybe just change it.

 

Ya know, most of the guys with Digi problems would die for a dash that was bright.... LOL....

 

Damn 236K miles? That's pretty inpressive. Original motor?

 

Hi Lyle,

This is hilarious. How'd you come up with this problem??? I've never seen a dash do that. My dash flickers to the bass and bass drum whenever I trun the volume up but I think that's the subwoofer amp drawing too much power (no capacitor).

You might want to try calling Gene Taber (the grandfather) at Taber corvettes in Indiana. http://tabercorvetteparts.com. He does most of the cluster repairs on ebay and he's damn good at this. He met Gordon Kilebrew and has all that circuit repair stuff and will probably at least tell you what he thinks it is. They have an exchange service and you can probably just get a rebuild cluster for way under 300. I might have seen them advertise that service for 199 on ebay.

BTW, I like reading abiouit your problems since I know they will be doozies and not just simple stuff. Let us know what it turns out to be if you go the repair route yourself.

Good luck!
Lee

 

..a-ok on the voltage, etc......somebody had another thread recently about this...sounds like the light sensor has taken a dump....

 

When the car is off, can you still see the display at all? You have to look at it just right or shine a light in front of it.

It may have just finally gone bad. This can happen very quickly or slowly over time. With that many miles on the car I am surprised it lasted THAT long!!

This is my center gauge cluster before I replaced it:



Now look at it when the lights are all off. Do you see how the center cluster is still "visible" where the tach/speedo are both pitch black?
This means the LCD itself is bad and finally bled through.



Let us know how it looks when turned off.

If the electronics all worked fine still, you can find all 3 of the LCDs brand new on ebay for $100/ea. There is a guy that constantly sells them on there. I would not recommend a rebuild service, most of those are expensive, and they always charge MORE for the $100 LCD's than if they just sold the LCDs by themselves. It takes roughly 10-15 mins to swap all 3 out at once and is pretty simple to do.

 

Hey all:
Yes, these are original miles on the bottom end of engine & tranny(the rest of the drivetrain has been replaced or rebuilt at one time or another......this car is a real trooper - I drive the crap out of this thing~it is so much fun! All cars will develope problems over time and I've had my fair share of dash bulb problems with this one over the years but this one is kind of funny I guess. I didn't get a chance to pull the dash today I just had time to look over my cluster repair manual and do some reseach on the internet.

GiJoe -- yes that is exactly what my cluster panels look like (UV /sun damage I'm told). I think your right one the money since I live here in the sunshine state (Florida).

Has anybody tried to put window tint film or smoked acrylic sheets/plexyglass on top of these LCDs to resolve the brightness issues? Think it might work or be worth a try?

 

It's not a "brightness issue" its a "the LCD is broken and needs to be replaced" issue

You have to replace the LCD's themselves with newer ones.
What happened is the sun, heat and time gets to them, so the liquid crystal stuff samwiched inbetween the glass panels eventually oozes into the other sections of the panel and thus it all "lights up".

It's the same effect that happens with an old LCD watch. Sometimes a section of the numbers get stuck "on" all the time. This is the same thing happening with your dash cluster. There is no fix for the LCD panels themselves, you must replace them.

To prolong the life of a new set, keep a sunshade in the windshield, dark tint your windows, and if you have a glass targa top, consider putting a shade up in there too (I use the headliner pad from my solid top, I can take it out on days I want to see through it)

This is an EASY DIY project too. You just need to buy the LCD panels, which run about $100/ea brand new on ebay. Don't bother with a rebuild service, they will just charge you more money for a super simple job.

I see you are just over in Tampa (I am in Orlando) ... if you need any help, PM me and let me know. I just did this project a month ago and now my dash cluster is as good as new again!

 

Just a little note for you guys. For those that don't know, the way an LCD works is to basically block light until a current is passed through it, it then allows the light to pass through. You may have seen some of the LCD windows that are sometimes used in bathrooms. They are clear, like any other window (current passing through LCD) and opaque when you switch the bathroom light on (removing current from LCD). At any rate, what happens in your dash cluster when the LCD gets burnt is the LCD becomes clear in the quiescent state and there is no control of light blocking and the light will just shine through, giving the washed out appearance. This is best shown trough a picture (1000 words and all that!):



As you can see, the top LCD has been completely burnt. The bottom LCD is new. Passing current through portions of the LCD, causes those segments to become clear. Light from the four halogen bulbs ('84-'88 xenon on '89) will then pass through the colored filter and shine through the LCD. I've never seen the filters faded.

One poster mentioned the guy on Ebay that sells the LCDs. His name is Jim Adams, from Massachusetts and is a standup guy. He'll sort you out if you need LCDs. The replacement is very easy, but you must take care that the LCDs are properly seated before screwing down the circuit board or you can crack the LCDs.

Hope this will shed some light on the LCD situation. (Pun intended)

 

My dash cluster is so dim, I can barely read it in daylight. Do you think I could by-pass the photovoltaic sensor to make it brighter?

 

LOL, oh yeah! My '90 varies in brightness almost constantly and is too dark most of the time. I guess it would be a little better than too bright and varying all the time. I haven't really delved into it because it is so far down the priority list and living with what I have hasn't been all that difficult. Best of luck.

Adam.

 

Yep that sucker needs to be fixed, Mid America has a service where they'll fix yours for around $350 if you dont want to try it yourself. I've never seen it do that before either.

 

Great post

 

Everything is fine on mine except for the speedometer. I tried pulling out one of the back-light bulbs but that did not seem to help much.

Has anyone else used a repair service that you would recommend? I see there are a couple options mentioned in other posts...