Hello!

I got a new to me truck about a month ago, and have been diving into fixing little things and making upgrades.

i had some burnt out dash lights, and decided to do an LED upgrade. I purchased some colored LEDs to give my truck a custom look.

I took the dash panel off, and was disappointed when I found I couldn’t get the green coloring off like many videos had shown. In all the videos I watched, it came off pretty easily with goof off or rubbing alcohol. Well mine seemed to have an extra layer, some kind of tape or epoxy over the green, and it was not coming off. I tried to the point I was taking the black off everything else, not what I wanted to take off. No big deal, I still wanted to upgrade everything to atleast new clear LEDs.

in the process I screwed up my oil pressure gauge. It seems broken now, just stuck at halfway even with the truck off. Again, not a big deal, I am getting a CTS3 monitor and can watch oil pressure with that.

now my problems….
my left turn signal dash light was burnt out before, but my right worked and so did my light indicating my brights were on.
when I put it back together, all three won’t work. I tried replacing them with bulbs I confirmed worked, both new LEDs as well as some of the old bulbs… nothing worked. My actual blinkers, brights, etc, work fine. I have checked all fuses. Any ideas?
thank you!!

 

It might help if you identified what you're working on....

 

So sorry!!

it’s a 1996 F250 extended cab, 4x4. 7.3L

 

I would pull the large connectors back out that go to the cluster. 1st off, see if they are both in all the way and squarely in place. Then pull them out, pull the cluster back out, and make sure none of the copper lands down in the connector area on the circuit board are wrinkled and loose. If you find some loose, smooth them out and then put a dab of superglue underneath. Press them down till the glue dries, that holds them in place pretty well.

 

Ok thanks for the tip. I did try disconnecting and reconnecting carefully several times, no luck. There were many parts of that electronic plastic panel that were no long glued to the dash, but I have never been inside of one of these so I thought it was supposed to be like that. I will take it apart again and glue that down.
I also contemplated cleaning all of the copper contacts, but wasn’t sure if that would be ok. Got any advice on that? Of all things vehicle related, electronics are definitely my weak spot. If I know exactly what needs to be done or part that needs to be replaced I can do it, but diagnosing electrical problems is not my thing lol. Someday I will learn. Thanks again!

 

Pencil eraser works wonderful for shining up spots on the circuit board.