Lenard
Active member
- Joined
- Apr 26, 2017
- Location
- Lake Mills, WI
- TDI
- 02 Beetle "skeetle" Previously: 98 ahu jetta, 05 bew jetta, 97 1z b4 sedan, 2004 bhw passat, 02 alh jetta, 2005 bhw passat, 97 b4v glx 1z swapped, another 98 jetta. Honorable mention: 81 jetta coupe 1.6d
This subject has been covered many times, but I'm going to bring it up again. It seemed to me when I was looking for help, the threads with the answers were buried. If you are a TDI guru, reading this may cause you pain. I'm going to attempt to explain this in a way that a guy with your average mechanical inclination can understand. Take it easy on me, it's my first write up(ish).
So, you've lost your cluster. Your turn signals, check engine light, battery light, etc., all still work. You don't have fuel level, temp, speedo or tach. No clock or odometer either*. Then read on.
* In some cases, you may get clock or odometer to work, but only after shutting the car off, and have not yet pulled the key out of the ignition. Some have reported that all the needles will flutter or sweep during key operation. Basically any weird cluster happenings may be applied to this thread.
Before you send your cluster out for repair, or worse, break your
cluster attempting to fix it yourself, try these simple things.
To make life easier for yourself, you're going to want to remove the battery and most of the intercooler/charge piping before starting.
1. The Orb of Death. These old diesels like to rattle. They like to rattle a lot. Your old diesel may have even rattled your Orb of Death loose. If you stand at the front of your car with the hood open, look on the right hand side of the engine block. You should find a giant circle looking thing with a bunch of wires running through it attached to a bracket. Here's a picture.
http://u.cubeupload.com/Lenard/IMG20180106211258.jpg
On the right hand side of the bracket, there's a retaining ring that needs to be unscrewed to separate the halves of the plug. Unscrew it and gently pull the halves apart. Be careful not to disturb any wires while doing this. Once you have them apart, check for and clean any corrosion on the pins and sockets. Apply some dielectric grease to the pin side of the plug halves. Rejoin the halves and screw the retaining ring back on. Be careful when tightening it, by now the plastic is old and brittle. You don't want to strip the plastic threads or break this ring. After it's tightened give the plug halves a good push together to make sure they're fully seated and double check the retaining ring.
2. If you refer back to the picture above, you will notice on the same bracket your orb of death is mounted to, there are three wires with eyelets attached that are grounded to this bracket. One of those wires is the ground for your Vehicle Speed Sensor (VSS). If you don't have speedo or tach operation, it may just be a dirty VSS ground. Remove the nut, and clean any and all corrosion on all three of eyelets. I have found that a strip of fine grit sand paper about the size of your thumb works best to clean them. Fold the sand paper in half, grit side in, Put the eyelet inside and rub together with your thumb and index finger. Clean any corrosion on the underside of the flange nut that holds the grounds down. Use a small wire brush to clean up the ground stud. Once you've cleaned everything, refer to your friend dielectric grease. A thin coat on all the eyelets will do. Bolt the grounds back to their proper location.
Now on to step three. This may not be necessary, but do it anyway for good measure. Since you've already got your battery out, and your intercooler piping out of the way, clean up the grounds that are behind the battery tray. You will have to remove the windshield washer reservoir as well to get to these. Here's a terrible picture of the ground wires in question. Should be good enough for you to get the idea.
http://u.cubeupload.com/Lenard/IMG20180106211232.jpg
You're looking for the three brown wires that you can sort of see there behind the intercooler piping. You should also clean the battery to chassis ground that can be seen tucked underneath/in front of the intercooler piping in this picture. Clean the eyelets, the nuts, the studs, apply some more grease and reinstall. If you're feeling really frisky afterwards, you can follow the thick battery negative cable to the engine ground. Remove the whole stud from the block and clean up both sides, and the eyelet for the battery cable. A bench grinder with A wire wheel works great for this. Dielectric grease it yadda yadda you get the idea by now.
And once you've got everything all put back together, intercooler piping back in and battery hooked up, you should have an operating gauge cluster. Hope this helps someone! I would like to apologize for the pictures not being the best. I took them a while ago and never intended to use them for a write up. I may add more clear pictures to comments if someone would find them helpful.
So, you've lost your cluster. Your turn signals, check engine light, battery light, etc., all still work. You don't have fuel level, temp, speedo or tach. No clock or odometer either*. Then read on.
* In some cases, you may get clock or odometer to work, but only after shutting the car off, and have not yet pulled the key out of the ignition. Some have reported that all the needles will flutter or sweep during key operation. Basically any weird cluster happenings may be applied to this thread.
Before you send your cluster out for repair, or worse, break your
cluster attempting to fix it yourself, try these simple things.
To make life easier for yourself, you're going to want to remove the battery and most of the intercooler/charge piping before starting.
1. The Orb of Death. These old diesels like to rattle. They like to rattle a lot. Your old diesel may have even rattled your Orb of Death loose. If you stand at the front of your car with the hood open, look on the right hand side of the engine block. You should find a giant circle looking thing with a bunch of wires running through it attached to a bracket. Here's a picture.
http://u.cubeupload.com/Lenard/IMG20180106211258.jpg
On the right hand side of the bracket, there's a retaining ring that needs to be unscrewed to separate the halves of the plug. Unscrew it and gently pull the halves apart. Be careful not to disturb any wires while doing this. Once you have them apart, check for and clean any corrosion on the pins and sockets. Apply some dielectric grease to the pin side of the plug halves. Rejoin the halves and screw the retaining ring back on. Be careful when tightening it, by now the plastic is old and brittle. You don't want to strip the plastic threads or break this ring. After it's tightened give the plug halves a good push together to make sure they're fully seated and double check the retaining ring.
2. If you refer back to the picture above, you will notice on the same bracket your orb of death is mounted to, there are three wires with eyelets attached that are grounded to this bracket. One of those wires is the ground for your Vehicle Speed Sensor (VSS). If you don't have speedo or tach operation, it may just be a dirty VSS ground. Remove the nut, and clean any and all corrosion on all three of eyelets. I have found that a strip of fine grit sand paper about the size of your thumb works best to clean them. Fold the sand paper in half, grit side in, Put the eyelet inside and rub together with your thumb and index finger. Clean any corrosion on the underside of the flange nut that holds the grounds down. Use a small wire brush to clean up the ground stud. Once you've cleaned everything, refer to your friend dielectric grease. A thin coat on all the eyelets will do. Bolt the grounds back to their proper location.
Now on to step three. This may not be necessary, but do it anyway for good measure. Since you've already got your battery out, and your intercooler piping out of the way, clean up the grounds that are behind the battery tray. You will have to remove the windshield washer reservoir as well to get to these. Here's a terrible picture of the ground wires in question. Should be good enough for you to get the idea.
http://u.cubeupload.com/Lenard/IMG20180106211232.jpg
You're looking for the three brown wires that you can sort of see there behind the intercooler piping. You should also clean the battery to chassis ground that can be seen tucked underneath/in front of the intercooler piping in this picture. Clean the eyelets, the nuts, the studs, apply some more grease and reinstall. If you're feeling really frisky afterwards, you can follow the thick battery negative cable to the engine ground. Remove the whole stud from the block and clean up both sides, and the eyelet for the battery cable. A bench grinder with A wire wheel works great for this. Dielectric grease it yadda yadda you get the idea by now.
And once you've got everything all put back together, intercooler piping back in and battery hooked up, you should have an operating gauge cluster. Hope this helps someone! I would like to apologize for the pictures not being the best. I took them a while ago and never intended to use them for a write up. I may add more clear pictures to comments if someone would find them helpful.
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