Thanks a million!

I followed your instructions to the T and also found the same cracked joint. What shoddy workmanship from whatever sub-contractor Ford hired to produce these clusters.

I've been having this problem for three years and I fixed it in 90 minutes thanks for your instructions! I have a '99 XLT that I'm trying to sell and I thought it would be impossible to do with an odometer that disappearing.

If you're ever in Dallas/Fort Worth email me becuase I owe you a cold one!

Descriptions for the search engines: vanishing odometer, disappearing odometer, blicking odometer, f150 odometer problems.

 

Thats the best offer I've had all year

I want to thank those that have posted follow ups on this thread. I'm glad my description was helpful.

Someone on another forum has described the same problem and repair: link
Looking at the follow-up posts there lots of people have had this problem. I knew this was a fairly common problem in the 99/00 model years, I just didn't realize it was that common.

 

Greg is the man. This one deserves a case of beer. I just fixed the odometer problem today. It took about an hour and a half. I have been dealing with my odometer flickering on and off for about two years now and these simple instructions worked.

It went exactly as Greg described, but I had to think about how to fix the solder pin because it was so small. What I ended up doing was putting the tip of the soldering gun on the pin until it heated up. I then put a dab of solder on the pin and the solder traveled to the bottom and filled in the crack.

Thanks again Greg!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

By the way, I sold the truck and got my asking price last December! Thanks, it worked all the way until I sold her.

 

and I want to thank you for doing this...

I didn't understand it at first, then a light came on and I knew what you were doing.
Very slick.

 

As an experienced electronics tech, I can tell you that cracked solder connections on anything will make you want to pull your hair out. Typically this problem can occur from one of two big causes...or both. One is heat, which usually comes from a high current (not necessarily high voltage) situation. The other is stress, due to insufficient wire slack or something that causes a constant "tug" on the connection. In either case, if there is an insufficient amount of solder on a connection, then over the years a crack will develop. In the beginning stages, your symptom (whatever it may be) usually starts out intermittent (happens once in a while), but gets worse and more frequent over a period of time. Insufficient solder quantity is becoming more and more of a problem these days on many electronic products, because there is less and less "human" involvement in doing this job in the factory. So while the quality of the work may look fine as the product goes through its quality inspection process, the quantity of solder is very likely at the bare minimum. Now, as I see it (and this is only my opinion), in the case of the intermittent odometer, it seems that the cracked solder connection is probably caused by stress on the connector pins due to very little wire slack from the cable that plugs into it. I don't think that it would have been high current, because LED displays do not typically draw much current at all, so it wouldn't get very hot. In either case, though, it probably would not be a bad idea to solder ALL the connections on that plug. At least you would be improving the solder quantity at that point, and you probably will never have that problem again.

My 2 cents

 

Greg,

Thanks for a great post. I've had this problem for about a year, and now it's fixed. Took me about two leisurely hours.

Dennis

 

Wow. I've been away from the site for about a year and in 30 min. saved myself an instrument cluster bill.....
Well kinda..
I actually laughed in their semi-serious faces at the dealership when they told me "the only way to fix that is to replace the cluster"
What a bunch of ask wholes.

anyway FWIW, my 4WD 2001 Lariat Screw started with the odometer at about 80k miles (now 84k) so this weekend I'll be doin the surgery myself.

Greg you rock, and the photo quality is excellent too. Never too many photos either.

Thanks,

wt

 

This is the exact same problem I just started having. Seems like a great fix courtesy of Greg. One quick, maybe stupid question, but I am not the most proficient guy with a soldering iron, where exactly does the solder need to go, just a "dab" on top of the shown connection? How low voltage of a soldering iron should be used?

 

I removed my my dash for the 3rd time today. My old eyes missed that cracked solder joint the first two times. I examined the joint on mine unsder magnification, and sure enough it was cracked as you described. I resoldered all the pins, and put everything back together. so far, so good! Thanks for your post!

 

Thanks -- I have a 99 F150 XLT Supercab with teh same issue -- the dealership said it was going to cost me around $700. I just wish one of you guys were close so I could just give ya $50 bucks and let yall handle it

 

As another member stated I am also an electronics tech just reflowing all the joints will take care of the problem in my filed the soldering irion is the most inportant tool if reflowing doesn't work get some solder wick and remove the old solder and put fresh solder on the joints and that for sure will take care of the problem.

 

I have had my 2000 F-150 4x4 Sport for two years and for about 18 months I have had the odometer problem. Thanks to this post I fixed it in about an hour. You guys never ceased to amaze me and thanks to all of you I can say that all of my issues with my truck have been taken care of. It has 108,000 on the odometer and is in as good of shape as the day it left Norfolk. Thanks again guys.

 

Well, I just finished. It took me about 2 hours total. I got hung up on how to get the light switch loose. I had to pry the panel that goes around the instrument cluster (don't pry the light switch cover itself, I kinda broke mine, but it's still holding in place) out far enough so I could push the tab holding the light switch in place. You might need a flashlight to see it in there. It takes a little force to get it out far enough to reach in with a screwdriver and push on it. I ended up dropping the lower dash panel out to investigate what was going on up in there before I figured it out, so that took and extra half hour messing with that.

Another thing is getting the instument cluster out. You have to take out the four black screws holding the white plastic to the dash. Then you have to release the thing that shows you what gear you're in (automatic). Take it out and drop it down. There's two plugs behind the cluster that need to be pulled out too. I pulled the red one out first then twisted the cluster the other way and pulled the white one out, then twisted it back to get it out of the dash. Pull the bottom first to get it out. I labeled wich side the white and red plugs went into so I wouldn't get them mixed up putting it back. The rest is fairly self explanitory. I think there's 8 screws holding the back of the cluster on wich allows access to the circuit board. Once off, disconnect the ribbon cable and pull the circuit board straight up and off the cluster. Then you can figure out the soldering part. I just took the iron moved the existing solder around untill I couldn't see a crack anymore. I suppose you could add some solder to it if you wanted. There's room there to do that. I wouldn't put more than jsut a little extra though. A big glob might run into the circuit paths and F things up. I magnifying glass and flashlight helped a lot to see what I was doing.


All together it was a little tricky, but doable. The odometer came on right away wich it hasn't done in two+ weeks now. I tested it before putting everthing back together and even when I jiggled the cluster around it didn't go off.

 

Hi everybody, I have been reading this forum for some time and want to thank Greg Upton and another poster whose name I can't remember. You guys helped me fix my @#$% odometer problem at no cost. I have a 1999 F150 with 95,000 miles, and my odometer started fading in and out 6 months ago. I dreaded taking my truck to a dealer, knowing that they would probably charge me $500 for parts and labor. Two weeks ago I spent a little over two hours following the repair instructions posted here and I am thrilled to report that the problem was fixed. I found the same cracked soldering joint as you had pointed out and quickly fixed it. The instructions on how to remove the lights switch assembly were a great help too. Eternally grateful, Polo