I hope everyone's still doing well, we're all living through a history book moment, but otherwise life continues on, just from home
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Some interior work updates. Bit of a mixed bag of results.
Here's the damaged area that results in the permanent brake warning lamp. I removed HC1 (the large black IC) to repair the traces and pads around it, was a pain in the ass with just a single tip soldering iron but managed to remove the chip eventually. Lots of black surface corrosion, but fortunately it wasn't major enough to break any of the traces.
Here's caps C12, C13, and C16. Looking a bit worse for wear. Really, the whole problem came from the middle cap which obviously was the one to burst, but the others weren't far behind.
Everything cleaned up and soldered. The bare copper traces lead to dead ends on D38 and TR11, so I wasn't too worried about making those look pretty. Seems like most USDM board I've been online have components there, maybe for the security system? Not sure. I put on a thicc layer of conformal coating around the area to protect it from future leaks or shorts since the traces are bare.
Here's the two extra bipolar capacitors I missed with my first order and the two largest caps that are ~5mm shorter than the ones I originally ordered so the boards would fit back in the backing plate.
And two fully repaired boards :^). The right-hand board looked perfectly fine anyways, but might as well work on it "while you're in there".
All the old replaced components. I'm sure it was completely unnecessary to replace the MLCCs and tantalum capacitors as well as the electrolytics, but it makes me feel better. What's a few brain cells lost to solder fumes anyways?
Now for the not so great stuff, this was the tach eddy current/motor/whatever the hell you call it before I touched it, though obviously I had removed the needle and gauge face to swap over the M/T face already. It was pretty obvious someone before me had disassembled the cluster before (which was evident from some other board repairs), but overtightened one of the tach posts and had to re-solder one of the wires. I was hoping my tach issue was circuit board related, but not so lucky.
Normally soldering the wire back to the post will fix the issue, but I think they pulled off the needle to perform the repair and messed up the whole gauge by pulling the internal magnet out of its track as I've read on another Prime thread. Of course, my removing the needle didn't help either, but it explains why the tach needle was basically non responsive before I got to it. Whatever way I tried putting the needle back in, it never moved as freely as the speedo did, so here's another +1 to Sudesh's old post about needle removal probably breaking the gauge completely.
I gave the tach to a local speedo shop, they said that even they have trouble removing needles without breaking the gauge and they couldn't do anything to fix my tach. Okay..........great news.
Moral of the story, do NOT under any circumstances remove a gauge needle completely. Maybe you can break the needle itself away from the metal post by holding the post inside the holder, but I would've much rather kept the old A/T face than try to swap a M/T face on, not that it would've helped me in this circumstance. Give it to a pro shop so you're at least covered if they break it. Not worth the risk to replace yourself.
To have a fully functional OEM cluster again would be a cool $700+ at this point for a new completely tach assy, which really rubs me the wrong way. I would like having an RPM reading for when I do the M/T swap, so S2000 cluster conversion it is. It was already something on my future wish list of projects, I guess this is as good of an incentive as any to do it earlier.
Anyways, here's the reassembled cluster after I picked up my tach. I did have a new lens and bulbs/felt/rubber tips ordered from Acura, but the lens was on backorder for a week. I ended up cancelling the order since I didn't see the point if I was planning on an S2000 cluster anyways.
Also, don't use canned air/computer dusters on the cluster. Predictably, the can shot out a teeny burst of freezing propellant onto the face and mottled it slightly. I cleaned it as best I could with gentle microfiber towelling and water, but it's not 100%. You can't see it under most lighting, but annoying nonetheless.
Whoever touched this cluster before was pretty careless, besides the tach gauge thing, they tightened down the bottom-right lens screw so hard they broke off the mounting tab completely. And two of the lens screws were missing. I thought the Japanese were supposed to take better care of their cars
?
Back in the car, brought my soldering station to fix this mess. Soldered, greased, and heat shrink'ed. That ain't comin' off.
With the steering column covers off, I remembered to take a look at the turn signal cancel assembly to clean the contacts and try to fix my turn signals not cancelling at all. This module sits on the top of the steering wheel, two small screws on the large black box and one small one holding the little assembly on underneath the bigger box.
Here's the contacts to clean (board and spring-loaded teeth), they were pretty greased up. The teeth I'm holding down love to explode out of the case and scatter everywhere, so make sure you don't lose any of these parts.
Cluster put back into the car for testing, all the lights seem to turn on which is a good sign. I replaced the smaller lightbulbs with
#74 Phillips ones (all the black casings), the leads were slightly bigger than the old bulbs so they didn't quite fit perfectly but they seem to work fine anyways.
Moment of truth, she chooches! Mostly. My CEL is for the rear O2 sensor I still haven't replaced yet. But the brake light warning is gone! But my tach still doesn't work...and my TCS button doesn't seem to do anything anymore.
The TCS OFF light doesn't appear when I press the dash switch, not sure why. The switch switches just fine, the PCB isn't pushed out the back, and the green connector is seated correctly, so I'm stumped. All I can guess is that maybe a pin was bent on the connector side or the light bulb on the cluster isn't working. EDIT: Judging by another pic of an NSX cluster with the key in the ON position, it looks like the TCS OFF light is supposed to come on, so my best guess is the light bulb isn't working. Hopefully so, that's the easiest fix.
Fortunately, all the other gauges still work, so I didn't over-tighten any of the cluster screws that caused the tach issue in the first place. My speedometer seemed to read just fine, I tested at 20 and 40 KPH just putting around and it seemed spot on, though I didn't test if that held true for higher speeds.
And everything put back together. I swear, this took me twice as long to put back, some of the panel screws were a major pain to put back properly, though I'm sure I could do it again in 10 minutes now...
To be honest I'm a bit bummed out with the results of this project despite fixing the major cluster issues (brake light, PCBs, potential fires), I couldn't fix the tach issue and most likely can't fix it without spending hundreds more on a new tach gauge. I like the S2000 cluster, but it's in the back of my mind that when (if :biggrin
the day comes to sell the car, I'm sure some smart-ass on Bring a Trailer will bomb my auction's comments section since the cluster isn't original. I probably won't sell my OEM cluster just so I have the part for the future, but it really bugs me that it's still not 100%.
Also, cleaning the turn signal cancel unit contacts did nothing, lol. My signals still don't cancel at all, no discernible change which kinda surprised me. Hit somewhat of a dead end with this as well, maybe replacing the turn signal unit itself would fix it but just throwing parts at that point. I'll just live with it for now, doesn't bother me much. Maybe I'll take another look in the future.
In other news, still have some final wet sanding to do on the exterior black trim panels which I just finished painting, then those will be reinstalled and my car will be back together again until I decide to mothball it again next week, probably to start fixing the door-related issues. Still waiting on my MITA shipment for the upper windshield trim; it's still stuck in the Jamaica, NY customs thing according to USPS and it's been two weeks now without updates. Hoping that makes it here soon, I don't want to put the trim back on just to have to take it off again for the windshield rubber replacement.
