Dash bulb troubles...

[RickTheEngineer]

Hello steel soldiers! This is my first post on the site, and I want to take the chance to apologize if I didn't post in the right forum. This is py new to me! If I made a mistake I'll do my best to avoid so in the future! Now here is my problem. I have a m1009 and I wanted to address a bulb that wasn't illuminating on the guage cluster. I took everything apart, and I got to the seemingly burnt out bulb (the one right behing the fuel guage on the right). I removed it and stuck a new 194 bulb in. Nothing! Then I got a new socket for it, still nothing! Here is where the mystery comes in. There are 3 bulbs in the speedometer/fuel guage area. I removed the center bulb (socket and all) and stuck it onto the fuel guage side, and boom light! However, when I then swapped the socket for the now empty middle one, nothing... I tried led and incandescent bulbs too... so basically, I can only get 2 out of 3 of the bulbs to light no matter what I try. Any thoughts? Thanks so much everyone!

 

[86m1028]

Bad/broken connection ?


welcome to the madness !

 

[RickTheEngineer]

The traces are clean as a whistle with no breaks! Yikes!

 

[RickTheEngineer]

Not sure if this helps at all, but when my headlights come on my left turn signal indicator stays on (right turn signal and side marker on outside of stuck stay on) but I'm guessing that's a bad ground and unrelated? Anyone know where the turn signal/side marker ground would be under the hood?

 

[m38inmaine]

Most times it's the ground tab in the bulb socket that breaks off or needs cleaning. Your dash light is a separate problem, get a multimeter and make sure the trace is not broken. You may also try bending the tabs on the socket out a bit.

 

[RickTheEngineer]

Picked me up some new bulbs sockets all together, and for some reason the problem still persists... only 2 out of 3 bulbs will light up, and it's just so boggling! I removed one bulb (so 2 remaining) and starting mixing and matching all combinations on the sockets and they all do light up nicely, but when I add the 3rd, only 2 stay lit! The struggle continues! Thanks for all your input by the way!

 

[cpf240]

Just out of curiosity, have you turned the brightness up all the way?

 

[RickTheEngineer]

Yessir! I messed with the brightness and everything! Low to high, still nothing sadly. I need a chance to break out the multimeter, but at least from what I noticed, there is no current on 1 bulb at any given time, which is weird to me because based on how I saw the traces, I have no idea how the current would find it way so perfectly into only 2 out of 3 bulbs at a time!

 

[cpf240]

That is a very strange situation. So it is not just one particular socket, but whichever bulb is plugged in last?

 

[RickTheEngineer]

Precisely! Maybe there is a current limiter? Wait, then the fuse would blow, so that cant be it... there arent any shorts of any kind as far as I can tell! At first I thought it was the fact that the voltmeter wasnt plugged in (dash is apart) so i plugged it in and no change... now I am really lost!

 

[richingalveston]

try rubbing the circuit board with your fingers while the lights are on. Does it make the light that is out blink. You may have a small hairline crack in the circuit. The sockets squeeze the circuit and could be exposing the crack in the foil when the next light is tightened.

Is it the same light that is out when all bulbs are installed? or does the non working light move around to different sockets?
The dimmable lights in the bezel are all on the same circuit. but each individual socket can fail and all the other bulbs still work.

rubbing the board with a little pressure with your fingers can reveal problems in the board.

The dimmer switch is a current limiter but it would limit all the bulbs equally

 

[riggermedic]

did you say that you were using 194 bulbs? I am almost positive they are supposed to be 168. I don't know if that would make any difference

 

[RickTheEngineer]

Here is a new update. I do not know what changed but after putting what I could together here is what I learned... The speedo bulb on the left is always on now, the right most bulb on the fuel level gauge doesn't turn on (when all 3 bulbs are in). However, when I remove the middle bulb, the right one turns on. That's the final situation! Grrr!

 

[RickTheEngineer]

Sorry! I meant I was using 168 bulbs! Also the LEDs I have are also 168! And as for the back of the circuit, what I noticed is that with all sockets in place, and all bulbs in, the right most one is out... However unplugging the middle one make the right bulb come on! I did what you said by rubbing my fingers along the traces and found no change. Hmmm... I am gonna have to dig deeper!

 

[86m1028]

I'm betting it's the flexible circuit board

 

[richingalveston]

I think you have a short in the circuit board at the middle bulb. When you put it in, it grounds out the last bulb when you take it out the ground goes away. The foil can get folded backwards at the connections.

The other option is something is wired wrong on the plug connection or foil is messed up at the plug. You have a constant hot now where you should not have. The circuit board can do strange things.

 

[78bigten]

These threads helped me with mine. You can find them in the Cucv Helpful sticky at the top.

http://www.steelsoldiers.com/showthr...Cluster-Repair
http://www.steelsoldiers.com/showthr...luster-Cleanup
http://www.steelsoldiers.com/showthr...luster-Decoded

 

[Zeus51]

Great info thanks!

 

[Zeus51]

Not sure if this helps at all, but when my headlights come on my left turn signal indicator stays on (right turn signal and side marker on outside of stuck stay on) but I'm guessing that's a bad ground and unrelated? Anyone know where the turn signal/side marker ground would be under the hood?

I have the same problem with the turn signal coming on when I turn on the headlights. What was the fix for this issue? Did it turn out to be ground isssue?

 

[Hasdrubal]

Well, my dash gauge middle bulb above the shift indicator has never worked, except once when I hit a big bump, it lit up for a day. It's very hard to get a finger on that one without using a trained monkey. Never bothered me that much so I never went and pulled everything to get to it. But I have had to give the other bulb sockets a slight tweak occasionally to get them back on. Even a good smack on the top of the dash does the trick.