How to Fix GM Clusters Back Light And/or Stepper Motors

Article provided by wikihow the wikihow manual.

Here is how to fix problems with GM clusters for problems with lighting or stepper motors. This would cause dark areas on your cluster or for stepper motors erratic or non functioning gauges.

Steps

1. 1
   Order your parts if you can, in advance. These should be easy to find online bulbs and Stepper motors are pretty much common trough out.

   
   

   • Stepper Motor for Gm 2000-2006 X25.168 replacing the XC5.168
   • Bulbs look on E-Bay for GM cluster bulbs there is a lot of them!
2. 2
   First with any GM vehicles you will need to pull the cluster out. This will require removal of the dash.
3. 3
   Second Cluster is out. You must tear it down to the board. Again Pics are for 2004 Sunfire but it's pretty much all the same with GM. Take great care when removing the indicating needles you should be able to twist them off. DO NOT PULL EXCESSIVELY!
4. 4
   Now comes the fun part Soldering! READ ALL WARNINGS.
   • For the stepper motors there is 4 soldering points per motor as per my pics. One hand have the soldering iron and the other the solder sucker(cranked and ready to suck). Apply heat till solder melts then suck solder and remove heat. Again take Care to not apply pressure on the soldering iron it doesn't work better because you have more pressure!!! What does work is melting a little solder on your iron to make better contact with the work.
5. 5
   Work on the bulbs. For the bulbs it is much the same as the stepper motors remove and move on. The bulb that lights the odometer back light requires you to remove the odometer LCD to gain access. Make sure you are good with soldering. you may want to bring it in to a TV repair shop or at least to someone that can solder or refer to tips and sent it to a cluster repair shop.
6. 6
   Finally soldering reinstall everything you just removed. Measure contact length and trim to fit should stick out 1/16 inch. When remember to be in and out don't heat the board (you will burn it). Put solder on your iron touch contact and apply more solder with other hand! don't put too much. Walls of your solder connection should be concave.
7. 7
   re-install cluster, dash, all screws... you should have none left at the end of the project!

Tips

• Don't let GM get your money!! If you are not comfortable with soldering there is many online cluster repair shops that will be glad to do this for you usually about 150$.

• Article provided by wikihow the wikihow manual. Please edit this article and find author credits at the original wikiHow article on How to Fix GM Clusters Back Light And/or Stepper Motors All content on wikiHow can be shared under a Creative Commons license.