'03 Gauge cluster replacement

[Mr_Rich]

I tried to do a search on this subject and Google has too much internet "noise" and ads to sort through these days. My friend's '03 2500HD with 6.0L/ Allison trans has failing gauges. I thought maybe I'd try to chase down this problem and ask on this forum. If I find a replacement are they, "plug and play" or does the odometer have to be programmed independent of the ECM? Is there anything else to be aware of?

[EVRLET]

Plug and play but the odometer won’t match. You can repair the existing cluster or send the replacement off to have the odometer match.

[hatzie]

I'm assuming the gauges are getting choppy and the panel lamps are burning out. That's common.
You can get the stepper motors and illumination bulbs in that cluster replaced for a pretty reasonable price.

The mileage and total hours run are stored in the instrument cluster on the T800 trucks.

[Mr_Rich]

This is good info to know. Thanks for the responses! I know my friend's truck gets intermittent/ transient CEL's that he's ignoring. He's living with the problem and always seems to go the most inexpensive route on truck repairs.

[hatzie]

The other failure point in several interior components on the T800 chassis trucks are the SMT resistors low lead solder cracking.

There are blocks of them in these instrument panels. Usually this is isolated to the resistors. Probably from thermal cycling. I've seen videos of people re-flowing the harness jack and Vaccu-Fluorescent display (VFD) joints. I wouldn't bother with those if you can't see round cracks in the solder joints under a magnifier. Unlike the compass/temp mirrors, I've never seen a cluster with the harness jack or VFD connections showing cracks under the microscope. It's not impossible but I have yet to see one with damage at those points.

Here's my post of pictures from my microscope looking at some cracked solder joints on a GM Gentex compass/temp/onstar mirrors. The resistors will be similar on your board. They're tiny little SMT pieces and you will not be able to see the cracks with your naked eyes. You can see the edge of the old fashioned through hole resistor in the microscope picture of the cracked SMT resistor. The SMT and through hole resistor are in the top centre of the board picture.



Here's the whole thread with more pictures.
https://67-72chevytrucks.com/vboard/...84#post8870184

[86454k30]

I have had good luck with purchasing 2 from these folks.

https://www.fixmygauges.com/oem-stock-clusters.html

[Boog]

My daughter googled and found a service in Missouri who repairs these clusters so they sent hers in and received it back in about a week. The only thing wrong with hers was most all the bulbs were burned out and they are soldered in. So for the sum of about $67 she got bulbs replaced and her temp gauge no longer worked. Later I removed the cluster and found cracked solder on that gauge so I fixed it myself. All good.

[hatzie]

Originally Posted by Boog

My daughter googled and found a service in Missouri who repairs these clusters so they sent hers in and received it back in about a week. The only thing wrong with hers was most all the bulbs were burned out and they are soldered in. So for the sum of about $67 she got bulbs replaced and her temp gauge no longer worked. Later I removed the cluster and found cracked solder on that gauge so I fixed it myself. All good.

Lead helps a great deal when touching up these cracking solder joints. Kester 0.031 60:40 Sn:Pb rosin core electronics solder and Amtech nc-559-v2 tacky flux.

You also want to use care to not overheat the board. The Import OLED stations that use the Hakko T12 tips are inexpensive nice entry level solder stations with fast warmup and great temperature control for a lot less than my Weller.

There are several groups of SMT resistors on these clusters that cause intermittent gauges. You want to look them over and touch them up