Major malfunction in 93 Civic LX dash cluster, please help!

ECU, Wiring, Sensors
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Major malfunction in 93 Civic LX dash cluster, please help!

By LionHearted1
- Sat Oct 29, 2011 5:38 am #279412 Hello everyone, and thank you for taking the time to listen to my problem.
I was really hoping my first post of this forum would be under better terms, but unfortunately, that's not my situation.

I'll start this off by saying the most frustrating part of this is that just about all of these problems are intermittent.

So, the speedometer in my cluster spazzes out from time to time. It will either work, randomly flip out, or read at 0mph. (This is the most constant of the issues.) I looked into it, and the most reasonable problem is a bad VSS, no real issue, simple 15 minute and $120 fix.

The other issues (and this is where it gets WTF-y) are...
1) My fuel gauge is no longer correctly monitoring the amount of gas in my tank. I put 6 gallons in the other day from empty and it's reading at nearly full.
2) The car is no longer keeping an accurate track of mileage. I drove to work the other day (easily an 11 mile drive) and the odometer clocked a whopping 1.7 miles.
3) When I brake the car, the engine revs. Not a whole lot, but about 500RPMs.
4) The seat belt check light does not come on if I take my seat belt off.
Not really worried about this as I know when I am, or am not wearing my seatbelt, but I figure this would be a symptom of a larger issue.
5) The temperature gauge also isn't as accurate. I know that it's getting colder, so it reading a bit lower seems normal, but I live in sunny South Florida... so... that's just doesn't seem to make sense.

From what I've gathered, the possible problems would be a failing cluster itself, but the car only has 54,000 original miles on it(no lie) so it does seem rather strange that this part would fail so early.
The soldering in the dash cluster has gone bad, apparently this is a common problem for these cars?
or a bad 02 sensor (seems like this is the least likely, but I suppose it could fall in the realm of possibilities?)

The car is my daily destroyer, so not having it running in top condition really isn't an option for me. Any advice or suggestions would be more than welcomed.

Thank you for your time.
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By 92civic_vx
- Sat Oct 29, 2011 11:24 am #279426 it may only have 54000 miles but it is 18 yrs old. clusters going out seems to be a common problem with our cars.
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By JUICE
- Sat Oct 29, 2011 3:06 pm #279430 ^this


I'm on my 3rd, which i already had to swap out the tach in, and now the odometer is only working occasionally.. time for a 4th
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By Datsmart
- Sat Oct 29, 2011 3:59 pm #279437 The usual problem with your instrument cluster will be a bad connection. The circuit board, (flexible film), on the back of the cluster is fragile. I have seen guys yard them in and out of their dashboards and toss them around and then wonder why they don't work.
Check for any breaks in the circuit board paths. Check all grounds also. There is a ground wire behind the dash that gets unplugged and can cause many of the issues you are talking about.
I once traded a guy a working instrument cluster, without tach, for his cluster with tach that had no dash lights. I found a tear in the circuit board film. After running a smear of solder to repair the circuit board path for the dash lights power it worked fine.
Also check the connections where the flexible circuit board contacts your wiring. These need to be clean and properly contacting the rest of the circuit.
You mentioned that your engine rpm changes when you step on the brake. Since the braking circuit connects the grounding circuit of your brake lights, I would bet you have a faulty ground somewhere in your system.

By bks84
- Sat Oct 29, 2011 4:00 pm #279438 1) My fuel gauge is no longer correctly monitoring the amount of gas in my tank. I put 6 gallons in the other day from empty and it's reading at nearly full. could be the sending unit in the tank is taking a dump on you. keep in mind mileage is only one thing that affects a car. age is another.
2) The car is no longer keeping an accurate track of mileage. I drove to work the other day (easily an 11 mile drive) and the odometer clocked a whopping 1.7 miles. replace the cluster
3) When I brake the car, the engine revs. Not a whole lot, but about 500RPMs. somewhat typical, my car does it too. when you brake, you pull vacuum from the engine via the booster. at least that is what makes sense to me. i dont think its anything to worry about.
4) The seat belt check light does not come on if I take my seat belt off.
Not really worried about this as I know when I am, or am not wearing my seatbelt, but I figure this would be a symptom of a larger issue. bulb could be burned out.
5) The temperature gauge also isn't as accurate. I know that it's getting colder, so it reading a bit lower seems normal, but I live in sunny South Florida... so... that's just doesn't seem to make sense. check the sending unit on the side of the head. its a single wire sensor, check for broken wiring. if the wire is in tact, the sensor could be bad, or the replacing the cluster might fix it.
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By LionHearted1
- Sat Oct 29, 2011 5:45 pm #279452 Alrighty, thanks for all the help.
Looks like tomorrow I'll pop the cluster out of the car and look for any bad wires, and at worst, the thing needs to be replaced.

I believe I saw a post about how to do this on the DIY board.

If I do replace it, and this new cluster has more mileage on it than my car does, is there anyway I could roll the odometer back?
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By LionHearted1
- Sun Oct 30, 2011 3:15 am #279512 Also, would anyone know where I should look for a new cluster?

Is this something Autozone would carry? ebay? PasswordJDM?

Bout how much should I pay for one of these?
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By HungRealLow21
- Sat Nov 05, 2011 11:51 pm #280340 oh man your best bet is a junk yard then craigslist ebay clusters are expensive and you really cant get another one anywhere else besides honda so try craigslist i see tons of them super cheap or the junkyard!!!! and while your at it do an led swap on the lights the light output is so much better ill sell you a set for the cluster and climate controls and throw in 2 free ones for your license plate for 10 bucks shipped pm me for details... or help lol
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By LionHearted1
- Tue Nov 08, 2011 7:06 pm #280765 The last time I was at the junkyard the only import I saw, not even Honda, I just mean not American car, was a wrecked to hell and stripped DC2.

Craigslist hasn't had much either, but I'll keep checking ebay.


You wouldn't happen to have red LEDs would you? :hehe:
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By LionHearted1
- Mon May 21, 2012 1:13 pm #305629 I figured that it might be best to just reuse this thread rather than make a new one, given Im having a similar problem.


So, I ended up replacing my VSS, and everything was normal for a while.

Recently, I've noticed that the speedometer will freeze and not work.
Itll either freeze around 50mph, or just lay flat at 0 and not work at all.
The miles driven havent been clocked either.

Ive also noticed that this almost always happens during the day, usually between 2-5pm. It has not happened at night, or in the early morning.


Any suggestions?
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By teal_dx
- Mon May 21, 2012 4:16 pm #305657
Ive also noticed that this almost always happens during the day, usually between 2-5pm. It has not happened at night, or in the early morning.


That's the hottest time of the day which leads me to think you have a bad solder connection somewhere on the circuit board.
Just like the common main relay board solders that begin to first show symptoms of failure on the hottest days, it may be as simple as a solder joint which has cracked from years of the board expanding/contracting from the heat/cold. If you pull the cluster out and look at the back side of the board, you should be able to see a bad solder joint- a magnifying glass will help.

Here's an example:
Image
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By LionHearted1
- Mon May 21, 2012 7:37 pm #305678
That's the hottest time of the day which leads me to think you have a bad solder connection somewhere on the circuit board.
Just like the common main relay board solders that begin to first show symptoms of failure on the hottest days, it may be as simple as a solder joint which has cracked from years of the board expanding/contracting from the heat/cold. If you pull the cluster out and look at the back side of the board, you should be able to see a bad solder joint- a magnifying glass will help.


So, assuming this is my problem, how can I go about fixing it? Can I just fill the cracks in with solder? Does the solder need to be scraped off and re-soldered?

and what kind of solder should I use?
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By teal_dx
- Mon May 21, 2012 8:07 pm #305681 They make a little suction tool that you can use to suck out the old solder after you heat it up and it is liquid form. Then re-solder using regular solder, not the flux-core stuff. You'll need a small iron, not one of the big gun types.

Just keep the solders clean without imperfections and you'll be good. :thumb:
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