Crappy electrical connections in the dash

SupraGuy

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I've got some weird electrical gremlins that I'd like to know if other people have had.

My temp gauge, and seatbelt warning light on the dashboard will sometimes not work. Most times they're fine. (Well, hard to know with the seatbelt light, but sometimes it's not on when I put the keys in, and sometimes it is. The seatbelt is fastened while I'm driving, so it stays out.) The two seem to be pretty closely linked. If the seatbelt light is out when I get in, the temp gauge probably will remain at full cold for most of the drive, unless I hit the right bump, at which point it will suddenly start working. I worry about the possibility of other warning lamps and so forth not working, and something going wrong.

The climate control sometimes won't light up. When this happens, I cannot change the vent settings, turn on the defrost, or the A/C. The A/C will be off, even if it was on just before the lights go out (Sometimes just goes dark while driving.) I can adjust the fan speed, not sure about the heater control, since it's always at "cold" for the summer. Sometimes hitting the climate control will make it work.

My hope is that it's just a poor connector, and that a little TLC can clear the problem up, and not a wire that's been stressed and gets intermittent contact internally.

The problem is what to do about the contact problem.

If it's the contact pins, then I have to tighten each one to make better contact. Or at least the ones which are the problem. I can trace which pins do the temp gauge and seatbelt light via the service manual, but I don't know which pins would be the problem for the climate control. (Just not the heavy contacts for fan speed control.)

The other possibility is oxidation, which would take a bit of cleaning and some dielectric grease. I suppose that I could do that anyway, but if it's in there, then it's probably also a problem in other places. For all I know it's a the other end of the wiring harness. Not making me really happy in any case.

Well, I've been working on my Supra, and it's about ready to break in the new engine, so I'll probably be driving that for the rest of the summer.
 

paypalbid

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I experienced the engine temperature gauge will stay on cold once a while, i would just flick my finger nail against the clear cover of the instrument cluster over the temperature gauge needle and it would bounce to the current engine temperature point.

Also sometimes when I forget to wear the seatbelt the seat belt warming light would not come on.

The problem with the Honda Accords are poor soldering joints. Due to heat and age over time the soldering joints on the circutry board will crack causing a intermittent or poor electrical connection. The poor connection has caused Honda main relay to go bad on hot days where you can't start the car; the climate control wont work over time (I changed 2 climate control in 19 years), the seat belt and engine temperature I have been able to live with. If you know how to solder and find the cracked joints on your climate control circuitry board then you can try to fix it yourself.
 

SupraGuy

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Well, I'm not bad with a soldering iron, so I may spend some time to go over it. The climate control is the one that's really annoying on hot days, since not being able to turn on the A/C is definitely something that's problematic. I suppose that I could go over the climate control board, but that really is a pain.
 

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