Today I went to drive my 88 and it started fine but my dash board light,speedo and tach, we're out and both turn signal indicatoms were on solid and so was my hi beam light. Any ideas????

 

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I have seen these exact symptoms several times before but I do not remember what the fix is.

It's something like a bad ground or bad power supply in the dash. The grounds involved would be G104 on the engine block (either above the oil filter on the side of the block or on a bell housing bolt) and G201 on the driver's door hinge pillar. G201 is just above the round brace that comes down from the dash.

 

Well known issue. Bad ground to display is now going thru turns and bright indicator. . Either run a new ground or clean up what is there. Go to Batee.com for more info.

 

Thanks for the info. I will have to check those grounds out. Does the cluster have to be removed to get to the grounds?

 

The cluster uses two grounds:

G104, which could be on the side of the block above the oil filter or on a bell housing bolt, depending on the year. My '86 has it on the side of the block and I know it was on a bell housing bolt in '89.

G201, which is on the driver's side door hinge pillar. It is located just above the round dash brace, partially hidden by the carpet.

 

how did you get on as my 86 is doing the the exact same thing

 

Same symptoms on my 86 with one more, the high beam indicator was also on. Take a flashlight and shine it into the instrument cluster and see if it's working (mine was).

I sent mine to Bryan at Bantee and here was his response on the issues with mine:
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The reason for the dark backlighting and indicator bulbs on constantly is that an internal power connector which carries power and ground to the LED illumination board has melted and needs to be replaced.
For the purposes of the photos here, I bypassed the internal connector set with jumper wires and it fired right up.
I can replace both sides of the connector set, replace the photocell as a preventive measure, and install a set of cooler-running Xenon bulbs for $199.95 + return shipping.
All parts are in stock and I can have the work done in one business day.
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I got it back the other night but have not had a chance to put it back in yet due to the cold weather. We'll see how it looks once it's back in it's home.
Bryan gave great turnaround so hoping it's good for another 20-30 years.

 

This was my issue and solution. After I ran a new ground to frame with no luck, I opened the dash up to see the burnt and melted connector. I followed the ground pathways on the circuit board and found good places to solder the jumper wires. I used a crimp coupling so I could separate the boards later if needed.

 

Well I bit the bullet and braved the cold this morning and put the instrument cluster back in and the dash back together.
Everything looks good (though I have not driven it yet due to the snow - it's snowing right now) so looking very good at this time. Once the weather breaks and I can take it out, we'll see if everything works as it should.

The brightness of the instrument cluster with the new bulbs shows a lot better than before the connection failed so I'm happy so far.

Hope that helps.

 

Do you have any other pictures of where you made the solder connections? How did you know where to connect to?

 

I went through something similar recently with my dash and no lights or turn signals lighting up randomly. I posted some extra pics of finding the cause in my own thread before I saw this one. Maybe it will help some.

https://www.corvetteforum.com/forums...-anything.html

 

Its easy enough. When you get the boards separated follow the pathways that lead away from your ground pin on both boards and find a place that looks good.

 

I inadvertently fixed mine the other day.

I had the battery out and noticed a screw post behind it with a stack of lug terminals under the end of the positive battery terminal. There was non-factory one that had later had the wire cut without removing the lug.

Everything also looked to be fairly gunked up, so I took it apart to remove the unused lug and clean the rest up. After I had it apart, I found some had a good share of the insulation from the crimp sleeve pinched under the contact surface, so I trimmed all of those back until they were clear as well.

Wired brushed both sides of all the lugs, coated them with dielectric grease, reassembled everything, not intending to fix any problems other than general cleanup.

But ever since I fired it up after putting the battery back in, the formerly intermittent (non-functional 90%+ of the time) digital portion of the dash has been working fine.

I guess the moral of the story is that with our 'glas bodied cars, keeping any and all of the electrical connections clean and tight is very important!

 

Well... after cleaning the typical grounds, finally got the ambition to remove the cluster. My intent was to do a self repair according to the Batee videos. Seemed easy enough. But after opening it up, I think I just want somebody more capable of repairing. Looking on ebay, there are a couple of exchange companies. Because I appreciate Batee giving us all the advice, I am leaning towards him for the repair. But does anyone have a preference and why? Since Everything works except the back lighting, the repair would be less expensive with bate, than to do the exchange. Unless he finds other problems. Any suggestions?

 

Read my note above, just had mine done by Bryan at Batee the other month. He was right on it advising what's wrong along with cost etc.
I have no complaints about Bryan's work or cost.

 

Thank you. That was just what I needed. I am going to ship to him and have it done.

 

It's really not as bad as you might think. But sending it to him will eliminate every potential problem and you'll have a cluster good as new, no worries. If you still have it apart check out the circuit board with the two inch long prongs attached to it. Flip that over and look at the back of the board where they are joined. If you see tiny cracks around all the points, I bet that's what's stopping your dash lights from coming on. I went through the same issue after putting new polarizing film on all three LCDs. The boards coming apart loosened those seats just enough to interrupt current flow.

That's an easy fix for the price of a soldering iron kit. You'll have to pay to ship it to him, as well as turnaround time. If you've already got it apart, give it a try. But if you're going to send it to him, do yourself a favor and have him re-skin the LCDs. He's a straight forward guy and not a rebuild service without a face. Places like Ecklers offer a rebuild service and charge $200-$300 per LCD "replaced" in a cluster, which is probably code for keep your sun baked lenses to refurbish and drop re-skinned displays in and charge a $250 mark up on the new film used on them.

I probably shouldn't look at it that way but that's the message I get from the vague description of replacing "defective" LCDs.

 

I think Batee is great but after taking the boards apart I just retinned or dropped a drop of solder on all of the power- ground pins everything still working after 2 years. Use 60/40(Tin/Lead) solder but I think 40/60 is ok

 

My dash lights during daylight hours but at night goes black and can't read anything, any suggestions????