My instrument cluster has stopped working in its entirety. I have checked the 5 amp instrument cluster fuse in the engine and passenger fuse boxes but both appear fine. I tried replacing them with new fuses anyway but no change. I have also discounted the battery for 30 mins in the hope this may resolve the issue through resetting the ecu. I am not sure what else else to do. Any suggestions?

Are there any lights on the IC ?

If its 100% dead and it has no lights, no guages working, no rev or speedo then my first point to check would be the main ground (negative) connection to the IC panel.

Update. It's working again! Odd but when I began checking for faults I extended and lowered the steering wheel and the instrument cluster came back to life. Returning the wheel back to its preferred position, three months on its still working. Weird.

On 9/6/2021 at 11:08 PM, unofix said:

main ground (negative) connection to the IC panel.

 

I had a similar issue.

Turned out it was the connector on the back of the instrument panel not "connecting", which I figured out when I noticed that if I wobbled the connector it would switch on and off.

Fixed it by _very gently_ widening the gap between the male pins on the connector to ensure their was contact on all pins between the male and female.



 

1 hour ago, Stray said:

I had a similar issue.

Turned out it was the connector on the back of the instrument panel not "connecting", which I figured out when I noticed that if I wobbled the connector it would switch on and off.

Fixed it by _very gently_ widening the gap between the male pins on the connector to ensure their was contact on all pins between the male and female.

An alternate possible cause in your case would be that your cluster is suffering from the common problem of cracked solder joints where the main wiring connector is soldered to the circuit board.

I'd be happy to take a look and repair this for you if you like, here's my repair service: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/314393033915

It's possible this was the cause for the OP also. His moving the steering wheel position obviously had to have moved some wiring to have made a difference. Either there's one or more damaged wires back there, bad pin connections as you suggest, or he's also suffering from the cracked solder joint issue and the shift in wiring has placed slightly different pressure on the connector such that the two sides of the cracks are coming into contact.

Update to my previous comment.

Widening the pins made it work again, for a while. Lasted for a few years with intermittant issues. Could generally just wiggle the connection at the back to get it working again, but yesterday it died, and refused to come back.

So today I bit the bullet, took the whole cluster out, sat down and took the whole thing to pieces, because as Lyndon suggested above, and from other things I've read it seemed very likely that it was going to be dry joints on the circuit board where the connector connects.

It's fiddly to get it to bits, with a lot of plastic connectors, requiring a little gentle persuasion with a thin flat screwdriver, but perfectly doable. Couldn't find an exact video on youtube of my cluster, but watched something to get the general principles which helped quite a bit. It's not actually complex, but it is fiddly. It will take patience getting it apart. Watch a couple of videos if you're not sure. It's useful for seeing how dial (clock) arms can just be levered off, and understanding removal of ribbon connectors. Again, not complex, just fiddly.

On mine it was very clear (looking through a magnifying lense) that about 4 of the pins on the main connector to the circuit board needed re-soldering. Did it, put it all back together.

A couple of notes for others; Dial (clock) arms (on mine) could just be pulled off to allow you to take apart the underlying pieces. Took a bit of effort, and actually just levered from both sides (to apply even pressure) with a couple of screw drivers and the aid of a friend. I watched a vid specifically to check that, but they do come off.

The circuit board has LEDs on, so once you've resoldered, you can plug that directly into the car to check it's got power before putting the whole unit back together again. I checked it after initial soldering, and once I'd reconnected the LCD, to ensure I didn't have to take the whole thing apart again.

Take pics as you take it apart to assist putting it back together. I didn't, and probably wasted a fair amount of time solving a few puzzles on reassembly.

Overall took about a couple of hours. Pretty sure I could do it in half an hour if I had to do it again.

If you've read this far.... You've clearly got similair issues, good luck.

If you've not done this sort of thing before, watch a vid or two on soldering too.  A thin soldering iron, some flux and a solder sucker will help.