Flexible Circuit Board In Dash

[Blown&Injected]

Battery was not charging, no power to the exciter wire, volt light is out. The sudden drop in volts cause a lean out and nasty KNOCK but I digress...

It looks like the metal contacts on the bulb fixture has worn out the contacts in the plastic flexible circuit board. I do not even know what this thing is called to even ask if it is available.

Broke the speedometer (VSS) digging in to all this - What a mess.

Was thinking about just using some very small wire to hard wire the bulbs to the plug the board makes contact with unless this thing can still be had.

Also wondering how much a speedometer costs or is it called the VSS? It looks like the entire "speedo" assembly is ala carte not just an entire unit.

 

[turbo nasty]

Battery was not charging, no power to the exciter wire, volt light is out. The sudden drop in volts cause a lean out and nasty KNOCK but I digress...

It looks like the metal contacts on the bulb fixture has worn out the contacts in the plastic flexible circuit board. I do not even know what this thing is called to even ask if it is available.

Broke the speedometer (VSS) digging in to all this - What a mess.

Was thinking about just using some very small wire to hard wire the bulbs to the plug the board makes contact with unless this thing can still be had.

Also wondering how much a speedometer costs or is it called the VSS? It looks like the entire "speedo" assembly is ala carte not just an entire unit.

My circuit ribbon was seperating and was not making contact and causing all sorts of craziness, I pulled another backing off of a Rivera cluster (speedo has trip meter) and it worked fine. A lil different but worked just fine.
Was lucky and got a low fuel light module outta the Riv also.

 

[Blown&Injected]

I was thinking it might be a salvage type part.

Should just call G-Body and be done with it.

 

[TurboBuRick]

The top half of lights that illuminate the cluster was out when I first purchased my GN. I made a jumper wire to go from the bottom lights to the top and wala, lights. I just looped the ends of the wires and put it under the leads of the bulb.
In your case, you might solder a set of wires right to the bulb leads and bypass the circut board all together.:wink:

 

[GNVenom]

The part is called the flex PC board. It interconnects all the dash function lights, fuel gauge, etc. The part does tend to wear out and tarnish, causing oxides to form on the bare copper contacts. Also, like you noticed, the bulb socket contacts tend to wear thru the copper, creating a disconnection. The critical part is the alternator light, where a bad connection can cause the car not to charge.

There is no real fix for this part, and it's not available from GM or anywhere else. If you can find a good used part, go for it. Remove the flex board, and using a pencil eraser, remove the tarnish on the copper contacts of both the sockets and the flex board. You can do a temporary fix by slightly offsetting each bulb socket contact and springing them slightly outward. By offsetting the contact, you can effectively move the point of contact away from the "hole" in the copper, exposing new copper under it.

I have a write-up that I did many years ago, and now I can't find it. I will keep looking...probably lost during some hard drive crash years ago.

I believe that this flex board problem will plague us in a big way. I have looked into building a better version of this board (using a thin rigid PC board material), but haven't had enough interest to go forward.

 

[chrisgarrett]

Hi John,
Do you happen to know what other GM cars might have the flex pc board? Mine's okay now, but it looks a little shabby. If you ever manufactured a replacement I sure would buy one.

 

[GNVenom]

The flex board is specific to our turbo cars because of the cutout for the tach/boost gauge. There is another different part for the digital dash cars, again, proprietary to our cars because of the hi-lo boost lights.

I will re-visit the PC board project if there is enough interest. It tends to get complicated because of the variations in the dash clusters. The lights on either side of the dash have differences as well so there are some variations there.

One possibility is to incorporate LED's in place of the lamps.

 

[turbofish38]

I show the printed circuits being the same ones on the NA cars. With that said here is a list of cars that use the same PC. There is a difference between the analog and digitals and they are the same ones used on the NA versions reguardless of which type of cluster you have.
Analog GM#25076807
84-87 Regal-All Engines
80-85 Riviera-All Engines
Digital GM# 25050012
84-87 Regal-All Engines
83-85 Riviera-All Engines

I agree with John. The problem I see is that the heat from all of the years of the sun beating down on the dash causes the copper ribbon to peel away from the plastic. Darn near impossible to find a good enough one in the boneyard seeing as the youngest cars are 20 years old now.

 

[Blown&Injected]

Thanks guys.

I am going to try to just hard wire the thing and see how that works.

 

[Evans Ward]

Thanks guys.

I am going to try to just hard wire the thing and see how that works.

Sent you a PM to see if you resolved this issue. I think I may have a similar problem and want to pick your brain!

 

[Evans Ward]

The used cluster I bought has a problem as everything works except the turn signals which when they blink disturb the fuel gauge circuit too with jumpy needle motion. Mechanic reports it's a circuit board problem with this used cluster too. Does anyone know if the turn signals can be straight wired or jumpered in any way to make everything work? Car has been in the shop for a month and I can tell the mechanic is getting tired of working with it! I don't have many options it seems.... :frown:

 

[chrisgarrett]

We need to get John Spina (above) to re-produce these things.

 

[BADDGUY6]

We need to get John Spina (above) to re-produce these things.

I agree. I need a new one too.

 

[Evans Ward]

Does anyone know anyone as to a vendor or company that will repair the PCB? Google is yielding nothing.....

 

[TurboTerry87gn]

Parts for dash

I have removed my digital dash as I'm going to a the FAST digital dash. I have all the parts for the digital dash but the ribbon trace is worn, but it still works. I have the vss, and any other part you might need I can send pics tomarrow if you want.
Cheap. Make offer.

 

[Evans Ward]

I have removed my digital dash as I'm going to a the FAST digital dash. I have all the parts for the digital dash but the ribbon trace is worn, but it still works. I have the vss, and any other part you might need I can send pics tomarrow if you want.
Cheap. Make offer.

What's the ribbon trace? Is that the copper line fields on back of the PCB like on the analog one I have? Do you have the harness too for the digital package? I'm going to look at getting the analog one working or repaired as a first option but I'm open to all options/ alternatives so shoot me some pics anyway if you don't mind. Thanks!

 

[marcnavs]

Charging issues

Yeah I ahd the same issue so I had the autoelectric guy tackle it. He soddered up the old board with the copper ribbon that was separating from the board which caused the car to keep draining the charge and he cured the problem. God autoelectric guy can do it. He wached me a $150 labor included and it was done with no more issues since 2005! Worth my time and labor. TTYL!

 

[Evans Ward]

That may be the route I may have to take. I bought a used cluster from a member here and that one that was thought to be good wasn't so I rolled the dice and lost there. Turn signals wouldn't function on that one. Eric Fisher has also helped me out with a nice looking PCB he had but I haven't heard back from the shop yet so I don't know if they have received it and have reinstalled to try it out. I like the way Eric does business and he's such an asset to this community! If this one doesn't work, I have talked to Fred of Fred's Turbo Performance who will try and repair these just as your tech did. I may end up sending him all three units if I need to so hopefully one can be repaired to get me going again. Car has been down for 6 weeks now due to this problem. I do appreciate you taking time to let me know these old PCB's can be repaired! I miss my car! :frown:

 

[marcnavs]

Yeah it's funny when I had it done. It blanked me that when I was about 12 years old I replaced one in my grandfathers 1979 buick regal where the gauges looked almost identical! But the same concept though he was having issues but we got one at GM. Won't find one of those around unless it's been sitting on some dealers shelf since the lates 80's early 90's hehehe!! Yeah I am getting my back on the road also. Will be a little while though. Putting the engine back in since I blew it up my 87 WE-4 on the highway up here in CT racing a 02 Camaro hehehe!!! Hope all works out for yah there. You will get it straightened out. HAve a lot of knowledgeable resources on this website that'ws for sure! TTYL!

 

[sinistir6]

Anyone found a solution to this problem? Mine is doing it now...