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2000 Buick Century - dead PRNDL and odometer display

Old Jul 25, 2019 | 01:15 PM
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Default 2000 Buick Century - dead PRNDL and odometer display

Hello,
New to forum here. I have a 2000 Buick Century Limited that just had the PRNDL / Odometer display go dead over the steering column at bottom of dash panel display. Everything else is working in car, including all dash lights, backlighting, gauges, radio, etc. Car has been well maintained and only has ~98k on it.

I've read where some people have diagnosed this problem down to blown/broken resistors in the electronics panel behind dash display, some have traced it to fuses. I ran a multimeter on the fuse box inside the cabin by passenger door dash, and I have two fuses that are showing no power with ignition off and on. I swapped out both with a new 10A fuse, same result. The two fuses that are dead are shown in attached picture circled in red. Would this be part or the cause of the issue? I'm not afraid to rip out the dash and get behind the panel, but if this is a fuse issue or a relay issue then I'd like to address it that way first. Thanks in advance for any advice!



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Old Jul 25, 2019 | 02:37 PM
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You don't need to pull the dash....just the cluster. That is what needs to be fixed. The fuses you have circled, the BCM would need to be good or the car would not run. Are you sure you weren't looking at SPARES?
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Old Jul 25, 2019 | 04:28 PM
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Thanks for the reply. I don't think I was looking at spares, the spares are in the foam on the cover, but I'll double check the positioning.

How would I get to the cluster? Are you referring to the digital instrument box that displays PRNDL and odometer?
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Old Jul 25, 2019 | 06:00 PM
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Yes, Cluster is the unit that houses these devises..
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Old Jul 25, 2019 | 11:41 PM
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You might be well off grabbing another cluster from a junkyard and swap it in to see if it blows fuses too.
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Old Jul 26, 2019 | 10:35 AM
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Thanks for suggestions guys, I'll first pull the cluster and check for blown/busted resistors. If there are none I'll try a different cluster off a junker.
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Old Jul 26, 2019 | 11:04 AM
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You'll do okay just going around and soldering all the grounds around the outer edge of the board. If you find cold solder joints to chips or transistors you'll want to use a heat sync on the leg to avoid zapping the devise. This fixes many cluster issues.
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Old Jul 26, 2019 | 04:47 PM
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Originally Posted by carfixer007
You'll do okay just going around and soldering all the grounds around the outer edge of the board. If you find cold solder joints to chips or transistors you'll want to use a heat sync on the leg to avoid zapping the devise. This fixes many cluster issues.
Not sure what you mean by using a heat sync... this will be my first venture into soldering a circuit board. I am decently mechanically inclined and not afraid to tackle it, and have watched a bunch of videos on this, but nobody has talked about that.
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Old Jul 26, 2019 | 05:12 PM
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This is a heat sync. You snap it onto the leg of the devise you are soldering. It'* Aluminum and does a real good job of keeping the heat from ruining the devise, which is very easy to do. Avoid static electric shocks. The solid state devises can be ruined from a shock that is so small you can't see, hear or feel it. When we used to rebuild clusters and modules we always used a grounding strap around our waist.
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Old Jul 26, 2019 | 05:13 PM
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Oops.....
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