Repairing wiring harness

[allan5oh]

My dash cluster has a problem on the right side, the lights are almost always dim or non-existent. I pulled the cluster off and played with the wiring, if I put a SMALL amount of force on the harness connector to the gauge cluster the lights will work fine. Let go and they go dim/out. I tried very lightly bending the pins, but that didn't help any. If anything it made it worse.

I imagine the male part of the harness connector(the part without the pins, that slides into the cluster that has the pins) needs to be rebuilt, where would I get parts or tools for this? I imagine it's a bitch!

[Larry227]

Best place would be the dealer. They may know what pins it takes or you may have to take one out of the plug and snip it off for a sample. There's like a zillion different connectors even though a lot look the same at first glance.
If you know which wires in the plug are for the lights you could pull them from the plug and crimp them down a little so they make a tighter connection then re-insert and plug it in a try it. That's what I would try first.

The problem could also be on the circuit board itself. I've seen the soldered connections on the back side of plugs crack just enough to cause your symptoms. That keeps the plug from having a good connection to the board.

[xzostd1]

Take a 12Volt test light from a good ground...(junction on the body/firewall) If it is a ground problem and you run the test light from a GOOD ground to the ground on the problem side of the dash it will glow. The point being that if it is a ground problem you could run a additional ground wire. The testlights high resistance protects you from melting things if you touch the wrong thing. Remember....Its Very hard to put the magic smoke back into electronic components!!
Bill