Fuel and temp gauges take time to warm up

Post by **JEBB4** » Fri May 03, 2019 11:13 am

So as the title says my fuel and temp gauges take quite a long time to become bright enough to read and if you dim them they go very dim almost out... and I know it’s a common issue that’s probably been asked but did a search and couldn’t really see an answer..

The car is a facelift with el dials from factory, I think it’s probably just an old capacitor on the circuit board just struggling due to age and Aussie heat but was wondering if anyone has had experience repairing the issue as new dials are hard to find and fekin expensive and I am kicking myself massively as I sold the set out of my bb1 donar car to someone for $100

Post by **JEBB4** » Tue May 07, 2019 11:20 am

I managed to kind of fix this for now anyway...

So the inter webs told me it was this dash light relay

However this picture was taken when it was completely unplugged and it made no difference to anything..

So I stripped it down got the gauges out and exposed the circuit board to see if I could see any signs of an issue..

Nothing crazy going on that side but I did notice this little capacitor thing looks to be leaking or has been hot..

I then plugged this board in on its own and gave all the little capacitor things abit of a wiggle, shimmy and tap which seemed to fix it...... for now...

Obviously was just a bad solder joint somewhere so may re appear at some point but for now it’s working fine and it didn’t cost me anything..

Hope this helps anyone else with the same issue

Post by **Drax** » Tue May 07, 2019 11:59 am

this needs adding to the wiki, good work

bennyboy · Post by **bennyboy** » Tue May 07, 2019 2:10 pm

Mate I would bin that capacitor and replace it, they are dirt cheap, just check the values and match it up.
Caps can leak when they get old and it actually plays havoc with terminals and circuit boards, I think that's what the root of the problem is likely to be, rather than a dry solder in itself.
I used to fix hifi with these issues back in the day and have done similar with games consoles etc. Just things showing their age, sadly!
HTH

Post by **JEBB4** » Wed Jul 31, 2019 12:11 pm

Just abit of a update on this..

3 months later they are still working fine, I find though if the car is not used for a while or it’s pretty cold they take ages to come on or get to full brightness but I have found that if you put your heater on windscreen and get it blowing some hot air it makes the process much faster

ATR84 · Post by **ATR84** » Wed Jul 31, 2019 12:27 pm

I wish they had kept that dash for the 5th gen, it is the main thing I miss about my 4th gens vs my 5th. Great fix by the way

sol-lude · Post by **sol-lude** » Wed Jul 31, 2019 1:41 pm

great work however as above, seems you found the issue I would replace that capacitor. a small electrical components place should have some kicking about.

One of the issues I have here now Maplin has closed. They were great for these sorts of things.