Digital dash repair - 1988 Olds Toronado

Hello all,

My digital instrument cluster on my Toronado has recently started to go off at various times, and for various lengths of time. I found a couple of individuals online that would repair it and send it back to me within roughly a week's time.

My question, from having a slight electronics background, is: is all they are basically doing just replacing the aging capacitors? I know that this works with monitors and other electronics, since the caps don't last forever.

As a test, I pulled the dash from another Toronado I have (1986) and disassembled it to see if I could notice any leaky caps. I didn't see any with bulges on top, but there was a lot of brown crusty blobs on the circuit boards near the caps...is this leakage or some intended factory adhesive/sealant?

I have years of soldering/PlayStation modding/wiring experience...is it possible for me to desolder any suspicious caps from my 1988 Toronado's dash circuit boards, match them exactly, and replace them?

Thanks for your input! I hope this is a good place to ask this kind of question.

Reply to
lgerhardx
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More likely the intermittent issues are due to cold solder joints and maybe bad inter-board connectors.

I would pull the thing, replace ALL of the electrolytic capacitors with modern 105'C types (the Panasonic FC series from Digi-Key are fine), or maybe even 125'C types. You want the high temperature ones. Then I would go through and redo EVERY solder joint on the thing until they were all nice and clean. Then I would hit every connector with De-Oxit and make sure they are all clean.

I don't know without seeing it, because it could be either one.

Sure, but it won't fix the problem, which is probably a cold solder joint. However, it WILL prevent other problems down the road and you might as well do it while you are redoing the solder joints.

Be sure to use a solder sucker, a temperature-controlled iron, and

63/37 solder. You CANNOT get away with anything less than perfect joints in these things. They'll be fine today, but if they are even a little crystallized they will fail a few years down the road.

--scott

Reply to
Scott Dorsey

***************************************************************************************************************************************** ** I hope I'm not double-posting, but I got an error the first time I tried to post this reply! Sorry if they both show up! ** *****************************************************************************************************************************************

Wow, thanks for all the detailed help and pointers!

I only have a simple 15/30W soldering iron (I think I have a 10W also), but not an actual temperature-controlled soldering station, or the 63/37 solder you mentioned. I assume flux is okay and recommended as well for good solder joints?

I've posted some pics here showing the brownish stuff on my '86 Toronado's cluster circuit boards. As you can see, some is even not near capacitors, but some long flat objects and connectors...if I run into this when I take my '88 Toronado's cluster apart, should I thoroughly remove it all?

I've got some electro-wash, and contact cleaner chemicals I bought from Newark a long time ago, are they at all comparable to the De-Oxit you mentioned?

Thanks so much! My company takes a two week shutdown period next month, so now I get a good opportunity to work on this project! :)

Pics:

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Reply to
lgerhardx

I have a similar digital dash in a 90 Reatta. I need to have it reworked, just as you are experiencing. One of the guys who is involved in this sort of thing wrote one time that a thorough cleaning is the first step, and sometimes the only thing wrong with these dashes, IIRC.

I dont want to muck with this myself, as the price for having it done is not so very expensive. There are enough other problems on these little cars that I dont want to borrow trouble.

Reply to
<HLS

Yes, use a little liquid rosin flux. Be sure to remove it. Look into getting a temperature controlled iron... the Hakko ones are fairly inexpensive and work just fine. You want something that can produce a huge amount of heat on demand, but which won't produce any more heat than necessary.

And you want 63/37 solder. It is eutectic and so much easier to make good joints with than 60/40. The 60/40 flows a little better, but as it cools it goes through a plastic range where you have to keep everything completely still or the joint will crystallize.

If it's an adhesive, leave it there. I am on a text terminal right now and have no graphics, but if it doesn't look like it leaked out of the caps (and it will be obvious when you remove a cap), it's fine.

Depends. What are they? De-Oxit is really just a light petroleum solvent with oleic acid and a red dye. The oleic acid is mildly reducing and removes oxides, then it leaves a thin layer behind to protect the contacts.

--scott

Reply to
Scott Dorsey

This is what I have for my 'contact restorer':

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?sku=00Z1309 I'm going to buy a solder station and the 63/37 solder, as you mentioned. If this chemical I have currently isn't good enough to do the trick, could you please let me know what the part # is of the De- Oxit chemical you recommend is? I looked on MCMElectronics.com for DeOxit and found a few different things. I wasn't for sure which one you were referring to. Thanks!!

Reply to
lgerhardx

Any of them will be fine. The spray can is probably the easiest to apply. The stuff in the little bottles with the brush will work as well and probably cost less per application, but it's more work.

--scott

Reply to
Scott Dorsey

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