[no subject]

["Gravato, Renato" Subject: Speedometer!]

>I have posted this question before but here it goes again.

Renato, your approach is all wrong.....Normally you won't get an answer
until you throw a temper tantrum about how the Digest "sucks", as I believe
it was put.

I assure you you'll get a far greater number of responses if you insult us
all when you ask any future questions....;)

>My speedometer wasn't working at all sometime last year.  I was able
>to get a new(used) instrument cluster.  It worked fine for a few weeks
>but then the cluster went dead except for the RPM gauge.  The original
>cluster nothing worked except for the speedometer.  I thought that if I
>switched the speedometer unit into the cluster that had the RPM gauge
>working it would be ok, but the speedometer doesn't work and now the
>temp gauge is not working either.  What I'm trying to get at is.  Could it
>be the battery?  Is it because the battery doesn't have enough juice to
>power up everything?  Or could it be the actual cables?  I have 3 cables
>with white, blue, and yellow connectors on them, how hard is it to
>replace such a cable? I wouldn't mind it so much but the temp gauge
>happens to be something I really need.

My guess is that is a problem with your SI (service indicator) board in your
instrument cluster.  This board runs off of 2 rechargeable batteries that
usually die, and take out half your gauges with them.  All your gauges are
connected through this board, and it's usually the weak link in the chain.

You probably replaced your existing cluster with another that had the same
problem.  I tried 3 junkyard clusters for our '83 533i.  They were all dead,
and I wound up repairing the original cluster that came with the car.

The simplest form of this repair is to replace the batteries, if they
haven't leaked onto the board and ruined some traces on the circuit board,
as was the case with mine.

I was able to isolate the bad trace with a multitester and jumpered a wire
across that section of the board.  There are aftermarket boards available
from Programma (in Roundel) for about $200.  As I'm a cheap SOB, I chose to
attempt to fix what I had before spending any *real* money.  The junkyard
clusters got returned for a full refund.

You can get new batteries with soldering tabs from Radio Shack and solder
them in place of the old ones.  It's real easy to mess this up, as the
batteries are difficult to remove without screwing something else up. Other
folks add a battery holder that allows for easy replacement in the future.
This works better, imo, as it's easy to solder two wires to the contacts
(jumper across the others for continuity) than to solder in the batteries
themselves.

Hope this helps,

Frank Massaro
BMW CCA Tarheel/ NCC
ISOP/ PF2/ FYYFF

'83 533i <---the bubbacar
'92 325is <---for sale!
'88 M3 <---coming Friday to a driveway near me!

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