1993 Eurovan Gas/Temp Gauges - Not getting anywhere

[Eurovan109]

Hi, I just picked up a 1993 Eurovan. The gas and temp gauges are not working. Not intermittent - just not working. I have seen various posts and web sites relating to cold solder joints. I have a few years experience soldering - I did find a few potential cold joints and redid them but still not working.

A few things I've done:

- Tightened gauge post clips for tach and fuel/temp gauges
- Resoldered the 6 voltage regulator (VR) points and a few points on the board around it.
- Checked for burned resistors (none)
- Resoldered all connectors for the 24 wire (?) connector
- Checked all fuses
- Checked voltage into and out of VR - all as expected (10 V out).
- Checked for cold solder joints (cracks or flat sheen) across the rest of the board with a 10x magnifier

The only thing I did not do is replace the VR. I get the feeling that isn't very likely and since my tests were good I don't know how that would be possible. Did replacing the VR fix the problem for anyone? Should I just keep working the solder joints? I guess there could be more.

I'm probably missing something obvious. Any tips appreciated!

Thank you.
Matt

[tds3pete]

I went down the same road years ago. It took me three tries soldering until I got it right and I have had no issues since.

I didn't reinstall the cluster after each try. I just plugged it in to test it and then soldered some more.

I am not sure that solder issues are visible. I ended up resoldering almost every spot.
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'58 Westy camper-come and gone
'73 Westy-bought new in Holland,now gone
'86 Syncro weekender-come and gone
'79 Westy...Oscar
'95 Eurovan Camper/5 spd...Marsha Mellow

[BillcSki]

on my 93, mine is flakey and currently a few finger taps to cluster resolve. My mechanic here back out eat said he would resolder it ( has done more then a few ) next time I dig in for a dashboard job that my list is building up on for clean up.

[postjosh]

i just did the mine today. it seems to be working (for now). i focused on the six solder points by the voltage stabilizer as shown in the excellent thomas exovcds video. https://youtu.be/RXM7ZreBuuY?t=5m2s

i noticed that the top three solder joints looked ok but the bottom three were a mess. they had too much solder on them. i think a previous owner of the car may have tried this repair and screwed them up. so, the first thing i did was remove the blobs of solder with a soldering iron and a metal brush. there still looked like there was decent coverage. i checked carefully and made sure there wasn't any solder connection between them. i think the previous attempt had only resulted in shorting the connection out. i decided to try it in the van without adding any additional solder. it worked. this is the first time i have seen water temperature in months. i'm no expert but here's my takeaway for eurovan109's problem:

the usual symptom is intermittent gauges since your heat and fuel never work, you may have a dead gauge or maybe no signal is getting there at all.

does the clock work at all. if it doesn't, then the whole gauge is probably without power.

check the bottom three solder points very carfully to make sure there are no short circuits.

even a tiny amount of hot solder is enough. don't over do it.

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'93 EV Wkndr – 5 cylinder – 5 speed - 280k+ miles

[Eurovan109]

Thanks everyone.

The clock does indeed work.

For my next round - since there are only 4 posts to the gauges, I was going to try to trace from those back to the VR rather than try to trace the whole board. Does the clock get driven off the VR also? I saw in some post from a far away land in what might have been Polish that the gauges can short but even that is fixable, so I might try opening those up. I did order some VRs to try to replace but I'm not convinced that's the problem. I checked the open voltages from the VR and it was fine but I realized I did not check the voltage in circuit. So if it's shorting out or otherwise not delivering the volts that might be diagnostic.

The prior owner said the meters were intermittent before but was namby pamby about it. The meters are utterly non-functional as of this moment. Intermittent would be nice!

[Joshwa]

I’ve got an extra manual cluster that worked fine when I pulled it last year for a diesel specific cluster. PM me if your fixes don’t pan out and are interested.
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93 Weekender TDI conversion (AHU)
93 MV TDI conversion (1Z)
Weekender rear cot
Late model cabin air filter on 93
Euro spec bumper install on 93

[postjosh]

[volkybus]

Well as long time VW n Bus man n short time EV man I just want to say this. Maybe just the ground wire is off. It's happened to me before. Good luck n let us all know. I still think Bays r better but still like my Euro. My tac n heat ga ar inop but frankly these vans are troublesome. Also there r many ground connections

[Abscate]

[Eurovan109]

[Eurovan109]

All is good!

I do get overanalytical.

The gauges were absolutely not working when I drove the 15 miles back to my house.

But it turns out (after the repair) - I was out of gas! Imagine my embarrassment when I stopped at my corner, probably with neighbors shaking their head at my new "contraption".

I got gas - and I was shocked to see the gas gauge move. I went to drive to a parts store to see about some things - and by the time I got there - the temp was registering too! When I got home - everything looked normal.

So I reckon the original effort did work - which I love - don't need to dig in for a while - and now I can go have fun on my beach weekend!

Will post back if something changes.

Thanks!

[postjosh]

good fo you! as a followup, i like to add that i’ve road tested mine now and everything is fine. i would encourage anyone with this problem to give it a go. the main thing to focus on is those bottom three solder points by the voltage regulator.
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'93 EV Wkndr – 5 cylinder – 5 speed - 280k+ miles

[Eurovan109]

Cool. I only have about 50 mi on mine but it's holding up. The next thing I was going to try was the soldering it to the socket. I suspect that loose fitting of the heat sink to the plastic inset is a possible source of vibration that after time is the effect of death by a thousand cuts. I'm curious if there are better ways to mount or otherwise dampen the vibration.

I'll worry about it when the time comes.

[JVonD]

I burned a hole in the board so I can't get my "B" pin soldered. Can anybody offer any ideas on jumping the VR terminals? Thanks! ~J

Also anybody have any idea why the Clock circuit is pulling 12v off the battery when key is off?
Wondering if I may have killed the regulator when jumping the van off it's secondary battery..?