Okay so after months of having a fairmont trip computer sitting in my EL dash without doing anything, I decided to actually wire it up. I used the connector from the fairmont I found at the wreckers, and cut and soldered the common wires of that and the stock connector together to make it work, those being the positive power, ground and the LCD dimmer signal.

Had to drive my sister to work before I had a chance to set up any of the other wires, but started her up and started driving. It was only until I was round the corner I realised I had a few big problems...

-No gauges are working
-Odometer won't light up
-No cruise control
-Indicators themselves work, but don't show up on the cluster
-Trans is in limp home mode, UNLESS I manually select gears 1-3

Idiot lights seem to be working (handbrake, battery, rear demister, oil, everything apart from the economy light which never worked anyway), and the cluster lights up when the headlights are on, but it's a bit difficult (and risky demerit points wise) driving in a car with no speedo. Or tacho. Or fuel gauge.

My only idea was that somehow one of the plugs had come out of the cluster, meaning those gauges weren't lighting up, and that somehow that affected the tacho signal getting to the ECU to let it know when to shift. But I had a look and both plugs on the cluster seem to be in fine?

Any ideas? Please!

Last edited by steedy on Sun Nov 04, 2012 5:53 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Okay one thing that stupidly didn't occur to me is a blown fuse. I'm gonna go have a look at them now to see if that's the source of the problem

Edit: fuses are good, all have continuity. As do the three wires that I connected for the trip comp to work

I really don't like bumping my own thread, but this one has me well and truly stumped! I tested every pin on both connectors for the cluster, and all of them (minus a few like low coolant, ABS, smartlock, the ones that wouldn't be switched on) had continuity, except for pin 4 on the RHS.

This pin 4 is a white wire that looks to be the speedo sensor input. Now, I tested them with the ignition on but engine not running, so I wouldn't expect any voltage from this (as it seems to function by pulse), but wouldn't you expect continuity still? Or is this a switched circuit too?

I tested for codes also and the only interesting one I found was 172, running lean. Unrelated, but might have something to do with my 2 month old ebay O2 sensor, buggered cat, or the HORRENDOUS fuel economy ive been getting.

Either way, it's off to the auto elec tomorrow because I'm all out of ideas. If we find the problem ill post it up, just in case anyone else finds themself in this bastard of a situation!

for now i would suggest remove and reverse everything you have done in regards to trip comp. test drive the car and go from there..
i can tell you the trans is in lhm because your speedo isnt working..

did you splice into the speedo wires or did you cut them????

Well see all I had done was hook up the positive, ground and LCD dimmer to the new connector (decided to use the trip computer connector from a fairmont instead of the stock clock connector), and then cut the wire which the tech doco said to cut, which says it's 'clock/ignition power'.

After that I didn't do anything because I had to go somewhere, so I didnt have a chance to touch any other wires. So as for cutting or splicing, neither. But there's been no change in the way it's behaving.

Yeah I assumed that in regards to LHM. Would you still expect it to be able to shift manually through gears 1-3, which is what it can still do?

has that power wire still got power??

Yep, +12V switched.

Hi,

Check that you havnt bent a pin on the cluster, and make sure the data line is good, not earthed through the shield.

Regards 96ELGli

Bit of a threadmine, but I find myself in this exact situation, having attempted the exact same thing. EL XR8.
Returned everything back to normal, still playing up. Doing my head in!!!