Sometimes you look with a 🔎 and you can't see the cracks but you resolder them and there sweet, normally its the can bus joints that crack but I resolver them all
They removed lead from solder and now electronics are having all sorts of issues including satellites and deep space missions. On my Audi, modern solder joints have a low melting point and leaving the car outside in hot weather slowly desoldered some joints (fixed them this a soldering iron and leaded solder which will last forever like in my 70s hifi equipment and voyager, lol).
New to the channel as having same issue on my mk2.5. Just want to say what a great resource your channel is, im starting a level 3 in vehicle repair in sept at the grand old age of 38 so wish me luck! Wish i had you for a tutor ive learned so much in just a few videos
Hi Alan, I had the same , I opened mine up and tried fixing it, it worked 4 a while and finally proper died 😂 just sent mine off to the same company you recommended, fingers crossed
Hi Alan thanks to you i have now sorted my instrument cluster after sending it to ecu testng who were great, unit now fully repaired focus now top notch thankyou.
Hi, love the channel. Had this exact problem. It's cracked solder joints on the pin connectors on the cluster pcb. Solution is to reflow all joints and all good. All down to lead free solder used on the pcb I believe.
Cracked solder joints where the connector joins the board. Being worse in cold weather is a tell tale sign, as the joints contract and pull away from the board.
I did my own took about 2 hours its pretty easy to do but you have to be really careful with the needles that you mount them to show the correct reading afterwards
Had a Mk4 Mondeo where the stock radio would not power on or off with ignition, just the screen stayed on and killed the battery. Reflowed the dash clocks and it cured it as all coms go through the clocks. Was a real pain to diagnose.
Very informative video Alan.I want to see more videos.Your boss should get rid of all these old cars including the red taxis and get a new fleet of cars.
Behind the instrument cluster the solder joints become dry and cracks and this disrupts the connection. Remove the cluster and solder the main joints again and it will be good as new. I did this repair on a mk2 focus 1 year ago and it’s running great since.
Yep common issue dry/cracked solder joints needs taking apart and reflowing. If you can't solder then just buy a used unit with less miles on than your current ones and do miles correction with focccus software.
Similar to this intermittent fault, the dash is dead and the car won't crank. In the engine bay fuse box there's 2 brown square relays. 1 will be faulty. It may not give a strong click sound.
Lots of intermittent trouble with a Mk3 Mondeo cluster. Just needed the fuse pulling in and out a few times after taking the cluster out and trying cleaning connections etc.
Might get solidifying iron out that's more than t my cars wotth 😂 it's always done the red flashing light thing occasionally, normally removing key and restoring fixed it
There easy to repair Alan its the soldering drying out I had the same I repaired mine its been fine since. All you do is resolder the joints that's cracked and broken.
I have resoldered 3 different focus clocks now, i still dont like doing it cause i a half blind in one eye, but anyone good at soldering should be able to manage it
Surprised you did not open it up and take a look. As others have said solder dry joints or screws inside making electrical contacts need tightening. Its quite interesting how car electronics work; basically there is loads of can messages flying around the network and ecus on the network either respond to messages or put out their own messages.For example a speed sensor will be sending out how fast the car is going, and the instrument cluster will pick those up and convert them to the speed display.
Troeble was caused by the elf and saftee lot geting lead removed from the solder. Whatever they replaced it with is much more brittle and causes the little joints to become disconnected. By the way, what's happened to Monnie, we don't see her any more.
Very similar to my 2008 mk4 Mondeo dashboard failure. It was fine, but when it began to warm up, it could just freeze completely, needles. Digital part used to work always and I drove the car for couple months with only feel and reseting average speed when I needed to know exact speed :) I got it fixed by one electronics guy, but it failed like two years later similarly. I was annoyed as fix cost like 200 euros. I got myself cheap airf reflow station and and went through every single solder joint. Third time was the charm and it's now been working for I think couple years already. Apparently on Focus clusters it can be really easy fix of resoldering all wire connector solder joints. There's only like 20 and can be easily done with conventional soldering gun.
My wifes Focus would just cut out when driving on the motorway. The garage said it was a chip on a board and need the whole dash removing so we scrapped the car which was perfect otherwise.
Hello,Alan. Great fix! Are you interested in using a thermal camera to help troubleshoot efficiently? Such as bad injectors,engine misfires,etc. We can send you one sample to review.
I went to a scrap breakers yard in Barnsley got one with the same part number for £20 Took it to Flash Dash in Sheffield it took him 5 minutes for £120
Alan I just fixed an mk2 cluster however I am very curious as to what the 2 small red light offset so the middle of the cluster at the bottom of the big clocks are for. My neighbour who owns the car was concerned but for some reason there is no description in the user manual as to what they mean. (at the 0 of the speedo and the 8 of the taco).
Same here. Started happening yesterday, as usual at the worst possible time in the worst possible place for it to happen. But at least this video and the comments here have saved me time and money.
Iv'e got Engine Malfunction displayed on my Focus 09 plate.Its a 1.6 diesel tdci.i was told it was the instrument cluster so paid £180 to have it sorted.It didnt work and it still has the same fault,various garages have had a look but after spending over £500 on it i have given up.I really love the car and have looked after it over the years and it drives really great,even when the fault is on the dash it does affect the acceleration but cruises nicely.You do lose faith in garages.The fault message appears on the dash after about 3 miles,if i turn the the engine off it disappears but will eventually come on again.I would never dishonestly try and sell it privately or to a garage so will have to be honest when i do decide to sell.
Got 60ohm at obd socket, where it should have been 120ohm. (Can't remember the pin numbers) Resoldered all legs on the multi-connector on cluster and bingo.
Evening Big Fella , Remember Salvage Rebuilds taking a punt on an old Focus and this was fault they had too. common fault they got it sorted and sold Wednesday night hope you have had a beer tonight and a slice of pizza
My car is at the moment off the road in the Repairs it simultaneously did its other favourite Focus fault and that is the oil cooler letting by and throwing oil in coolant water,,It caused a lot of confusion with both common faults occurring at the very same time
Great Video Alan. I had the same issue with my CMax 1.6 petrol and sent it away to a company in Cannock. Since then it’s been reliable but occasionally I get a long crank….wonder if it’s connected??
Hello Alan wondering if you might have some idea as to why my MK2 focus automatic won't let me select years manually I can to P R N D no problem but knocking it over to manual doesn't do anything, any ideas where the fault might be?
You make it look sooo easy. But just getting those instruments out must be hard for someone who has not done it before. Anyway very interesting and I hope my Mk3 Mondy does not do that.
Happens a lot on these Solder joints in the cluster wont make good contact Can give a lot of codes Even destroy other connected modules Seen one destroy a pcm because it was shorting 12v to signal wire
That shouldn't be possible. Nothing is changing connections when solder joints are getting bad. Not even with diodes on the board. I think something else happened in your case.
@@jothain it sure can If the cluster shorts out it can damage a lot of other things Seen it happen a couple of times were the problem started like this and caused bcm or even pcm to break If the solderen joints break it can screw with the power distribution of the ipc witch can even cause it to catch fire
@@JasperTW-NL that is possible, though if poor connection actually breaks something else, well it's also poor circuit design in that case. That kind of stuff should never ever happen. Protection by fuses, diodes etc. is then missing.
