Burnt Instrument Cluster

Hi All,
Warming up my 2003 Jetta Wagon MT this morning I smelled a bit of burning plastic. Then noticed neither my temp gauge of fuel gauge were working. Pulled out instrument cluster and found this:
https://imgur.com/a/KFzYi7B

Is this murder or suicide? Did something else cause this, or did just something that happened? Anything to check before popping in a new/used one?
I wondered about maybe the coolant migration thing, but nothing weird at the coolant reservoir, nor at the cluster in terms of crusties or wetness.
Also, can't seem to insert an image, so the imgur link is to the photo.
Thanks,
Carter

Update

Hi all again,
Upon further investigation, the mini-meltdown happened at the glowplug indicator light.
https://imgur.com/a/P5Dmw4q
I currently only have 3 working glow plugs. I posted this summer about my glow plug travails. The number is currently 3 and nothing short of a new head will get me to 4. As it has gotten much colder up here in Maine recently I have been engaging the glow plug circuit 2-3 times to make sure I get a decent start. Maybe I should not have been doing this?!?!?
Again, any idea if this could have been caused by somewhere else in the circuit?
Thanks,
C

Doubt it; the indicator is not hard-wired to the plugs themselves, it's an indicator.

Anything I should check before plugging in another cluster? (And jumping through the six million hoops to get the used cluster to work with the car.)

The only "hoop" to jump thru is have a tuner guy do an immobilizer delete, unless the "new" cluster is from a gas car, in which case you could change the tachometer face for the appropriate scale and redline.

"Anything I should check before plugging in another cluster?"
It couldn't hurt to inspect/clean all your ground connections. Electricity mystifies me, but it stands to reason a burn means too much voltage?
If so maybe a ground has failed to "ground".
http://web.mit.edu/dennis/www/vw/grounds.html
Disclaimer: I possess a rudimentary understanding of electricity

STDOUBT said:

It couldn't hurt to inspect/clean all your ground connections. Electricity mystifies me, but it stands to reason a burn means too much voltage?
If so maybe a ground has failed to "ground".
http://web.mit.edu/dennis/www/vw/grounds.html
Disclaimer: I possess a rudimentary understanding of electricity

Click to expand...

To much voltage would increase the amperage.

A bad ground -could- cause other circuits that share that ground to try to re-route (or back feed if you like) through what may be a lighter gauge wire or circuit board in this case.

A poor connection increases resistance. Resistance causes heat.

It couldn't hurt to inspect/clean all your ground connections. Electricity mystifies me, but it stands to reason a burn means too much voltage?
If so maybe a ground has failed to "ground".
http://web.mit.edu/dennis/www/vw/grounds.html
Disclaimer: I possess a rudimentary understanding of electricity

Click to expand...

I will check my grounds. Couldn't hurt.

A poor connection increases resistance. Resistance causes heat.

Click to expand...

Could the poor connection just be on the cluster's circuit board?

And sorry for the slow response. Instant notification emails stopped coming for some reason.

wonneber said:

To much voltage would increase the amperage.

A bad ground -could- cause other circuits that share that ground to try to re-route (or back feed if you like) through what may be a lighter gauge wire or circuit board in this case.

Click to expand...

An increase in voltage for the same given draw(wattage) DECREASES amperage not increases. This is why many people damage car stereo amps...the amp wants more than 11 or 12 volts to make the power it's supposed to and the FETs see an increase in current due to the lower voltage but sustained wattage. Bad idea to run car stereo without the engine running...well back in the day anyway.

But I agree, A bad ground can have you chasing your tail from one end of the car to the other

Sent from my Pixel XL using Tapatalk

Oh boy. So I got the new(used) cluster in the mail today. Installed it. Hooked up my computer with Vag-tacho to read the pin on the new cluster. Vag-tacho wouldn't read it at all. I thought it was my cable drivers, so I spent forever fiddling with drivers in windows. Changing ports, blah, blah. I had used the exact same setup in February to get the pin from the original cluster successfully. All the while turning the ignition on and off about a dozen times. Battery charger hooked up so I wouldn't lose the battery. All of a sudden a tiny bit of smoke and stench. Both from under the hood and behind the dash. F--- me! Unhooked everything. Disassembled the new to me cluster and lo and behold, burned in same spot. So then. $75 experiment says it's not the cluster doing it but something up stream. Outside of checking every single ground I can find, any suggestions on how to trouble shoot the source of this problem?

Not sure if this will be helpful or not!

There are several sensors, i.e., coolant level, brake fluid level, washer level, fuel level, outside ambient temp sensor, MFI indicator, and maybe others, that all connect to a common splice. That splice (buried in the wiring harness) is labeled as Splice 269. It has one circuit that goes to the Cluster serving as a ground for all those sensors. It goes into the at pin T32/7 on the Blue side connector.

I feel quite certain that the 269 splice is in a good location (not subject to water) and is welded (stamped). Thus probably no need to try to find.

T32/9 is a ground
T32/24 is a ground.
T32/23 is positive (B+) which think means always hot
T32/1 is positive with the ignition on.

Seems that the GP light signal comes from the ECU via the CAN Data Bus circuits (not sure)

Like Andy pointed out, make sure that pin 7 of the blue cluster connector has 0 volts on it. If it has 12 volts, then that's what fried your clusters.

See here for a detailed description of the issue:
http://forums.tdiclub.com/showthread.php?t=375151

Thanks for all this. Great stuff. Especially the under battery connector location. Yesterday when it happened again there was a tiny bit of smoke from somewhere around the battery. I pulled the battery and tray right away to make sure there wasn't something obvious going on. Nothing at the battery fuses, nothing obvious under the battery tray. Will get a chance this weekend to dig deep into this. Will report back. Thanks again.

Progress

So far it is exactly like the posted link: http://forums.tdiclub.com/showthread.php?t=375151
12 volts were at pin 7 on the blue cluster connector that should be a ground, and the connector under the battery is an absolute mess. Going to try and find a decent connector to splice in. Will update again soon.

Connectors?

So I found new connectors on ECS Tuning, part #'s 1J0973837 and 1J0973737: https://www.ecstuning.com/b-genuine-volkswagen-audi-parts/electrical-connector-14-pin/1j0973837/
https://www.ecstuning.com/b-genuine...s/electrical-connector-priced-each/1j0973737/
Any idea which terminal they use? The small or the medium? N10335807 or N90684505
Also, anyone know where to get the little seals?
The link I posted in a previous message mentions soldering in another connector, and that solder will help stop the coolant migration. Any other suggestions to stop it if I go with replacing the connector the factory way?
Thanks in advance.

300D said:

Any idea which terminal they use? The small or the medium? N10335807 or N90684505

Click to expand...

I can probably find that out for you later tonight or tomorrow morning.

Although T32/7 is a ground connection, I believe with the ignition ON, it might show 12 volts. Keep in mind, all those things it provides a ground for are sending 12 volts to be grounded ........ does that make sense?

AndyBees said:

Although T32/7 is a ground connection, I believe with the ignition ON, it might show 12 volts. Keep in mind, all those things it provides a ground for are sending 12 volts to be grounded ........ does that make sense?

Click to expand...

Not yet. If this was the case then every part of the car would have 12 volts in it at all times?

That's the reason, I ask, "does that make sense?" Sometimes two, too many beers affects my thought process.

The 1.0 (thinner) wires could be either 000979132 or 000979134. The 2.5 (thicker) wires could be 000979226. Either of those part numbers could have an A suffix (e.g. 000979132A), which I think means gold plated.

Unless you only need a couple of these wires, you might be better off getting the wires and connector from a junkyard.

gmenounos said:

The 1.0 (thinner) wires could be either 000979132 or 000979134. The 2.5 (thicker) wires could be 000979226. Either of those part numbers could have an A suffix (e.g. 000979132A), which I think means gold plated.

Unless you only need a couple of these wires, you might be better off getting the wires and connector from a junkyard.

Click to expand...

I have gone the junkyard route. In the middle of splicing in the connector. Wow, it's a lot of wires. And it's cold out. And wet. And gets dark way too early. Will report back again with progress.

Resolution!

Final update.
Spliced in a new to me T14 connector. Used solder and adhesive lined heat shrink tubing(from Harbor Freight, worked great). Checked that the pin 7 in the blue T32 connector was a ground as it is supposed to be. Yup. Popped in my second used cluster and proceeded down the rabbit hole that is PIN retrieval.

I just want to say that I am all for staying above board with proprietary tools(an example is that I own my own copy of VCDS). But I am also a strong minded individual who doesn't think that a 15 year old car should have a part(the PIN) that is not wholly owned by me and easily accessible by me.

So just to lay it out, I had originally used a cheap VAG-KKK cable from Amazon plus VAG-K+ Commander to retrieve my original PIN. So I started there. Instantly got a full dump from my new cluster, but it didn't give me the proper PIN. Then it wouldn't even give me a proper dump anymore. My VCDS cable and software still showed a fully functional cluster, just not letting me in to adapt to my car. (And a bone to pick with the VCDS software. The new cluster came from a different car so therefore had a different VIN and then used one of my 3 VINs that come with the VCDS software. Which just doesn't seem right.) Fast forward several frustrating days of trying to get another software, eeprom programmer, to read my cluster through the cheap cable, I realized I could use eeprom programmer on the original .bin file. It gave me a PIN! But then this PIN would not work in VCDS. VCDS wasn't explicitly telling me the PIN didn't work, it would just 'drop' the connection.

So fiddle diddle fiddle diddle and I found a spot in the cluster's measuring blocks that showed a timer for how long the cluster locks you out after an incorrect PIN. Ten minutes. I also discovered that you have to leave the ignition on for the length of time specified to allow the timer to count down. Which to conserve batter as I tried various methods to get through this I would turn off the ignition. Anyway, 10 minutes later it accepted the new PIN! Then away I went with a successful adaptation of the new cluster. And then a redo of my keys to work with the new cluster as well. Even used the eeprom tool to set my correct mileage to the new cluster. Car started right up and everything works! Which felt pretty good. Or at least until I discovered that my oil cooler was leaking, and my injection pump head was also leaking, and my coolant temperature sensor was also leaking... (Now all fixed except the CTS, which I should have today)

Outstanding work! great info. I'm sure with you about that proprietary bidness, bull stuff.
One suggestion- If you used any of that VAGtacho free stuff from the internet, scan your Windos with the off-line Defender (or?). Pretty much all the downloads I could find for that were infected.

Downloads

BobnOH said:

Outstanding work! great info. I'm sure with you about that proprietary bidness, bull stuff.
One suggestion- If you used any of that VAGtacho free stuff from the internet, scan your Windos with the off-line Defender (or?). Pretty much all the downloads I could find for that were infected.

Click to expand...

Yep. Thanks for posting this. Never did find a working VAGTacho. Every one I found as well had a trojan virus that Defender found. The EEPROM though is good stuff.