Start with the soldering job. The connector pins can and do experience cracking also. When you push, you deflect it just enough for the pin to make contact. You also happen to push enough for other components to make contact, so go over the board with a magnifier, and touch up the odo display pins and indicated components while you are in there anyway.

Alex.

Thanks Alex , I have fixed my MGM 2006 Cluster based on the guide and SMDs on the front side near main connector were the real culprits here.

Regards,
MR

Ok so my 08 cvpi started out with two issues a couple of years ago when I bought it. First was the odometer light would occasionally dim or even go dark. Second the fuel gauge would not like to read full after I filled the tank, usually it would sit at E for hours or even a day or two, eventually it would get where it's supposed to be. It would never have an issue reading as the gas drops from driving it just took forever to read in the filling side. I generally got used to these issues and knew how to work around them, but now that I am looking to sell the car it decides to get angry with me and now the entire cluster turns on and off randomly. Since that began I can't get the odometer to light up to get an accurate reading. This makes it rather difficult to sell with a malfunctioning cluster and not having an up to date mileage reading. Would you suggest I pull the cluster and resolder it as shown in the tutorial or simply get a new one? I've never soldered before so I don't want to toast the connection but I can't afford to take a hit on the sale price because of the problem. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks all.

Since you never soldered before I would caution against it. It really is a skill to be learned, just like welding or brazing. Do you have any friends who can solder?

If you want to send it to me I'll do it for $30. I expect that will correct the odometer problem but I can't guarantee the functionality of the whole cluster. In fact, I would question whether or not it will correct the cluster problem.

Have you reseated the connector to the cluster and checked the fuse? Also check to see if any wires are loose in the plug.

This thread is a great guide! I just fixed the odometer thats been (mostly) dead for the last 4 years. I have very little soldering experience and never soldered on a circuit board before. The tip about being sure to hit the tiny resistors under the odometer display was spot on. I went over every solder spot on the back with a jeweler's loop and found no imperfections. Gave one of the resistors on the front a (very) little tap and it was wiggling like crazy. I could have sneezed it off the board. Anyways, it was a little tricky getting the iron in the right spot under the display but i got it back on, and the odometer is good as new! So excited!....forgot to take a pic of it lit up.... Thanks for putting this thread together. Couldnt have done it without it.

Excellent. Good thing you didn't wait much longer to attack it, no telling where that resistor would have wound up.

Alex.

xcopkar would you be willing to do the odometer fix for me? I don't have a soldering iron and even if I did I don't know if I would feel comfortable doing it myself anyhow. Have you ever done it yourself before?

needles simply push off/on? I'm in this far and don't care to break anything.

thanks!

never mind

Yes, needles pull off / push on. They are tight however.

I rotate them the opposite direction and mark with a pencil. Then pull them off, then that way I can get them on exact.

Speedo gets turned all the way clockwise.
Fuel gets turned all way counter clockwise.
Temp gets turned all the way clockwise.
Tach gets turned all the way clockwise.

When you put needles back on, insert them just a tad and use them to make sure the shafts stayed in the full direction before pressing them down on. So far so good on the few I have done.

There appears to be different types of failures on these clusters. I just got a hot air rework station and also a precision soldering iron for very small repairs, and am waiting on a microscope.

I spent 3 hrs resoldering each and every component and joint on the board and the issue still remains, the ODO is intermittent, some indicator lights all at the same time fail to come on with the initial key on sequence, and lastly sometimes the fuel guage reads empty.

I even went as far as using a home brew magnifier to be able to see all the legs on the main processor chip, I used the hot air and proper reflow flux to reflow all those connections to no avail either.

Good possibility the cluster is just toast. I'm waiting on finding a decent non-pi cluster for mine to see if it does come down to the cluster or some outside influence is acting on it (DDM).

Alex.

The cluster is never toast, its just I lack the diagnostic ability. When I send them off the AR speedometer, they always come back working rock solid. I have never been able to get any info out of them on what failed or what they did to fix. And the fact I always try to reflow the stuff first, I cannot tell cosmetically what they did or what I did to identify.

The actual labor part of doing the repair is cake work with a hot air station and small tip iron, but the diag is where it is difficult.

I've been avoiding this for over 2 years but FINALLY tore into the cluster this weekend.

My specific problem was that the odometer, high beam indictor, gas gauge, and some other dummy lights would malfunction intermittently. They hardly worked at all when the temperature was below 45F here in PA.

What I found was that the 32-pin connector seems to be my problem NOT the board components or solder joints.

More details:
Getting the unit apart wasn't much of an issue and I used a USB microscope for the up close & personal views. What I found was that the existing factory solder joints all look pretty good. However, I put some heat to the aforementioned joints (odometer resistors, connector pins, etc.) for good measure in case there was something I didn't see. This didn't help at all. When I had lost all hope and began re-installing the cluster, I accidentally found that if I put some downward & forward pressure on the 32-pin plug, the problematic lights would illuminate!!! From the driver's seat, the pressure would be down towards the pedals and (pull) towards the steering wheel which is away from the front of the circuit board. This was consistently repeatable.

Due to this glimmer of hope, I spent several more hours trying to solve the issue at the plug & receptacle but with little luck. The circuit board was removed from the cluster assembly and I took countless trips between the work bench and the car to test any tweaks that I made which included (but not limited to), de-duster spray, contact cleaner, reflowing all connector joints, bending the pins in various directions, removing the latch mechanism on the plug, check all wires going into the plug from the harness, etc., etc.)

I still wasn't able to get a 100% fix but everything started working fine about 2 minutes into my test drive. I'll be keeping an eye on this through the week to see if is a good fix. Anyway, this was a baffling discover because everyone says the cluster has faults but I found that my electrical plug connection is the issue.

Toast as it relates to the DIY'er, not a shop setup with the expensive tools to program them and who has access to the software.

There is a single microcontroller on board that contains pretty much everything, software, odometer value storage, control for the various cluster functions.

The rest of the board is support systems, and yes, good possibility the trouble lies there, but good luck tracking down an intermittant. Nothing I metered caused me concern.

Alex.

We need to find out how to reflow the processor chip. I did not have the proper paste to do so, but I did reflow mine. I ended up getting upset and spent 2hrs resoldering the entire circuit board one part at a time. Still nothing.

Sent to AR speedometer and all is well.. I dont get it.