Oppai

Hi Folks,
My car has intermittent gauge cluster issues. Actually, more like the gauges intermittently decide to work for a brief few seconds.

Have pulled everything apart and noticed a few gifts from the dealership that imported the car and probably did the gauge removal to send out for odometer repair.

1. Every single bracket, tab, screw hole, and clip on the gauge shroud was snapped. I didn't have to undo a single clip on the gauge shroud for the entire removal. (Goodbye $400)
   
2. one of the tabs on the gauge cluster itself was snapped and super-glued back in place previously
   
3. The left blank headlight motor button was not installed back on the shroud, but tucked away behind the HVAC (might have something to do with how they fucked the screw holes for that blank as well)
4. The headlight motor button was held on by silicone and the original screw for decoration.
   (In true degenerate fashion, they couldn't be bothered to silicone up the second screw hole so my headlight motor button would flex about 2cm into the shroud when i tried to press it.)
5. 
6. 
7. During disassembly I noticed a chassis ground that was cut/disconnected. The ground was located next to the door/dash air vent mating point. (I suspect it might connect to something else I found)
8. The odometer LCD as well as a few capacitors have been replaced on the cluster board. Despite this, most of the cluster still chooses usually not to work.
9. I have pretty pink rhinestones all over my gauges from the original owner in Japan. (somehow less heinous than all of the other **** I've described thus far.
   
   

Now that I'm done whining let's get on to the actual problems with the gauges... It seems like this ground is not connected to anything.
Am I correct in assuming that this should connect to the mysteriously cut chassis ground behind my door card vent panel?
If not, what am I supposed to do with this?


As you can probably see in some photos there's a healthy amount of contact corrosion on the connector contacts and also around the screw contacts. I'll be cleaning all the contacts to see if it helps at all.

The erratic behaviour of the gauge sometimes working leads me to believe it's a grounding issue, since all of the circuit components that I was able to see seemed... passable and there weren't any cracked/detached solder points.

Oppai

In addition to what that PGRND connector is supposed to connect to, i'd also like to know what the proper procedure is for re calibrating the needles on the gauges.

Oppai

Update after cleaning all contacts & perfoming continuity tests on the circuit sheet

• Left turn indicator bulb was previously not blinking due to corroded contacts, issue has been resolved
• Oil Pressure gauge used to jump to zero and jump back up intermittently, possibly due to corroded contacts. Issue has been resolved
• still don't know what the PGRND contact should connect to. If anyone knows please help.
• Speedometer was previously not displaying speed or only displaying it intermittently.
  After cleaning contacts and guesstimating the needle calibration, the speedo seems to work at speeds over 10/15 mph
  Would be helpful to know if the speedo no displaying speed at low speeds is due to a needle calibration issue, or if it's the adjustable potentiometer behind the speedo face.
• Dash backlighting does not turn on. Headlights work fine. There seemed to be continuity in the backlight circuitry in the gauge cluster.
  I suspect it might be caused by a bad or disconnected dimmer switch?