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Gauge cluster rebuild?

Joined
10 June 2017
Messages
25
Location
ohio
I could not find this being discussed, but has anyone had their gauge cluster rebuilt, and is the car driveable without it? I know some cars the battery won't charge, et. al but I've seen where others are useable albeit you do not have warning lights and speedo, etc. Any experience appreciated.
 
Technical spoken, it should be drivable. Besides some very basic logic functionality. The cluster is mostly a passive device that displays information and provides very little functionality on its own.
 
Thx. I've not undertaken a project where I ever had to drive something without a gauge cluster in it. Kind of a unique proposition. Obviously, if you are able to drive and move the car, it makes the time and space of getting it done a little easier.
 
Not unique at all. Car people typically have none of their cars complete or finished.

I drive my NSX around without a climate control or radio. That is when I do actually drive it...my main road has been under construction for the past 18 months...don't need a broken windshield.

Driving around with out a cluster is no big deal. Just put your phone on Google maps in the cluster cavity and it will inform you of your speed in Direction mode. Good enough.
 
I could not find this being discussed, but has anyone had their gauge cluster rebuilt, and is the car driveable without it? I know some cars the battery won't charge, et. al but I've seen where others are useable albeit you do not have warning lights and speedo, etc. Any experience appreciated.
Brian K from http://nsxe-repair.com/ has my instrument cluster to rebuild it as we speak. He would be the man to talk to about any cluster issues you’re having.
 
Not to denegrate Brian K's fine work as i was not aware he was doing them, so i recently had MITA of Japan rebuild my unit. It is done by Honda techs and they have a test module to test every function. This "tester" was a Honda tool part at one time so perhaps Brian has one or made his own. Mita turned it around in about a week. Nothing was wrong with my cluster by the way, i had a non-cluster wiring issue.
 
I had a local tech rebuild our gauge cluster, as well as the climate control unit, radio and speaker amps.
You can drive the NSX with the cluster completely removed, I did this when shuffling cars around the garage during that project then did a short lap of our subdivision to get the fluids circulating.
I plugged in a GPS for speed and it worked just fine.
 
Thanks again to everyone above for the input. I've owned my 91 for going on 25 years, so even with very low mileage, 29k, things are starting to creep up that need to be addressed even without wear. I've not had to do some of this stuff on older collector cars I have so it's new territory.
 
How did they calibrate the speedo and tach?
I don't know, they worked perfectly before and also worked perfectly afterwards.
There are indeed adjustment pots, but the topic never came up...
 
Not to denegrate Brian K's fine work as i was not aware he was doing them, so i recently had MITA of Japan rebuild my unit. It is done by Honda techs and they have a test module to test every function. This "tester" was a Honda tool part at one time so perhaps Brian has one or made his own. Mita turned it around in about a week. Nothing was wrong with my cluster by the way, i had a non-cluster wiring issue.
Hello Tanto,

Is there any chance you are aware of the part number for the unit tester from Honda?
 
>Is there any chance you are aware of the part number for the unit tester from Honda?

There is no SST from Honda that I know of for the cluster. It was likely assembled, tested, and calibrated at Nippon Seiki.

The unit that Tanto is likely referring to is the one at T3Tec. Years ago, I contacted T3 for further and received no response.

There are other solutions out there ranging from $3 to many hundreds.
https://www.nsxprime.com/threads/ga...iving-puls-specification.213497/#post-2015392

I recommend you contact @Heineken and *beg* him to build another unit.

 
Hello Tanto,

Is there any chance you are aware of the part number for the unit tester from Honda?
The service manual does not list a gauge calibration tool so I suspect that the tester is a factory calibration tool unavailable to everyone else. Prime member @Heineken built a complete gauge tester / calibration tool

Contact him and perhaps he would be prepared to sell you a copy. However, if all you want to do is calibrate the tach and speedo, you don't need a complete tester to do that. An adjustable pulse generator will do that and that can be had for probably around $15 or less (or free if you have an Arduino Uno hanging around). The service manual sets out the pulse rate data for calibrating the speedo and the tach.
 
>Is there any chance you are aware of the part number for the unit tester from Honda?

There is no SST from Honda that I know of for the cluster. It was likely assembled, tested, and calibrated at Nippon Seiki.

The unit that Tanto is likely referring to is the one at T3Tec. Years ago, I contacted T3 for further and received no response.

There are other solutions out there ranging from $3 to many hundreds.
https://www.nsxprime.com/threads/ga...iving-puls-specification.213497/#post-2015392

I recommend you contact @Heineken and *beg* him to build another unit.

I appreciate all the info, I've been in contact with Heineken and it seems like he may be my best option.
 
The service manual does not list a gauge calibration tool so I suspect that the tester is a factory calibration tool unavailable to everyone else. Prime member @Heineken built a complete gauge tester / calibration tool

Contact him and perhaps he would be prepared to sell you a copy. However, if all you want to do is calibrate the tach and speedo, you don't need a complete tester to do that. An adjustable pulse generator will do that and that can be had for probably around $15 or less (or free if you have an Arduino Uno hanging around). The service manual sets out the pulse rate data for calibrating the speedo and the tach.
Good to know!!

Thank you all for all the advise(y)
 
Please note that it might be sufficient to use Google Maps or any GPS based speed measuring device to check the accuracy of the cluster. If it's less than +7 mph off it's still in an acceptable range.

The need for re-calibration normally comes up if the calibration pots have been touched before (typically to compensate for some aging effects). If the pots are still original and only the capacitors have been exchanged than there's a good chance it's not too far off.
 
Please note that it might be sufficient to use Google Maps or any GPS based speed measuring device to check the accuracy of the cluster. If it's less than +7 mph off it's still in an acceptable range.

The need for re-calibration normally comes up if the calibration pots have been touched before (typically to compensate for some aging effects). If the pots are still original and only the capacitors have been exchanged than there's a good chance it's not too far off.
Just as a data point, BrianK replaced the caps in my cluster (1992, 137k miles) and:
  • Tach is accurate to 5,000 rpm
  • Tach shows 7,500 at 8,000 rpm actual
  • Speedo is accurate to 40 mph
  • Speedo shows 75 mph at 65mph actual
It's going to need some adjustment on the pots, which were untouched prior to service.
 
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