03-06 Instrument Cluster Stepper Motor Replacement

[Bob T]

Originally Posted by j20m715

Thank you BobT for showing how easy this fix is.

Dealer wanted $600+ to fix (said truck in question was not
included in campaign).

I then found a company local to fix, poor customer service (more like lack of) & my short temper lead me to do it myself.

I have the cluster apart & stepper motors removed, waiting on
my new ones.


On a side note, has anyone relpaced any of the cluter bulbs ?

Glad I could help. Have not tried replacing bulbs. Soldered bulbs looks like a dumb idea to me. If GM has layoffs, I hope whoever decided to do that goes first.

[tnsven]

This is an interesting thread. I am trying to get some info so my husband can fix our 2003 Chevy Suburban when he gets home. Here's what has happened:

Very cold here (for TN)....about 10 at dawn, below freezing most of today but sunny. I took the Suburban to get hay. All analog gauges worked just fine. I turned the truck off while the hay was loaded. It was off for less than 30 minutes. I started the truck up and left. After driving a few minutes, I noticed none of the analog gauges were working. All were in the zero position. I stopped the truck and turned it off then restarted. No luck.

So I'm guessing, as noted above, this isn't a stepper motor issue as it would be unlikely they'd all fail at once. What else could it be?

Thanks so much!

[neonhomer]

See if you have any blown fuses. Do any of the warning lights work (like ABS, airbag, brake warning, seatbelt, DIC, etc etc)?

[tnsven]

Will check for blown fuses tomorrow. Also any loose wires.

All other digital-type displays work fine, including the seat belt light and the towing light, both dashboard display lights. The odometer is digital and that works just fine too.

I'll be back tomorrow if the fuse or other quick troubleshooting doesn't find the problems. Thanks!!

[The Performer]

This is an excellent thread, however I wish I would have seen it a long time ago when I was doing the gauge LED mod. I had about 3 of my stepper motors lock up because the needle shaft had pulled out from the motor rather than the needle come off of the shaft.

Luckily I was able to repair them, but holy hell are they small and finicky...

Here's some pics of what happened incase anyone else runs across the same problem.







All in all after the fix this has to be the 2nd best value mod I've done to the truck. 1st best would be the 03+ 4HI headlight mod.

But this turned out to cost about $8. I had found a 50 LED blue christmas light strand at hobby lobby and resistors from radio shack. Now's the time of year to buy LED's ;)

[striider]

Nice mod, Perfomer. Hey, did you happen to have one of those blue socketed incandescent lights lying around? I really would like to know the part number off of them so I can replace a couple that are out on my 2008 Suburban. I would prefer to stay incandescent so my whole dash matches and I retain the dimming functionality that way. Thanks in advance!

I just replaced all of the stepper motors today, as cold temps here in Colorado seem to really mess with them and I had 3 going out.

[The Performer]

I can see if there's still one somewhere in the shop, but why not just replace them to all LED? The dim feature will still work, it does fine with my gauges.

[striider]

Thanks! I grabbed a couple 12v lights about the same size from Radio Shack...they have wires hanging off of them, but I should be able to stick tape them in place similar to what you did. If I had an aftermarket head unit with a blue readout, I would gladly go to LED, but I hard wired the stock head unit to accept my mp3 player instead and kept it. Good to know the dimming still works, though.

The radioshack lights worked fine, but are a hair dimmer than the stock. I just unsoldered the blue socketed ones, then soldered the new wires in place. Then I used poster sticky goo (since I couldn't find any double sided tape) to hold them in place. They lay in there sideways instead of standing straight up like the factory ones, but the gauges look fine since that is all internal.

All in all, replacing all stepper motors and 2 bulbs, I spent approximately $30 and 2 hours of time. Would have only taken an hour max if I had done it all at once. Beats the he%l outta the $500 the dealer wanted for a new cluster!

[Egghaus]

Just replaced 2 stepp motors this afternoon, was pretty easy except for my lack of soldering skills. I could have saved myself alot of aggrivation by checking my joints with a meter before testing the cluster. I almost melted away the contact pads on the PC board around the motor pins, but I managed to get it.

I know the mid scale method for setting the needles didn't work for Bob T but it worked for me. Before removing the needles, turn them counter-clockwise till they stop then mark the position, with tape on the cluster. When putting them back on, push them on at 12 o'clock (straight up), then twist them back down to the mark you made. This worked perfectly for me.

[f4tal]

anyone know the part number for the new motors they are replacing them with? not the OEM ones?

[Bob T]

Looks like I'm gonna have to follow my own advice. Fuel level ga. stepper motor died. Ordered one on EBay.

[Bob T]

Got my ebay stepper motor in. Good deal, fast ship, updated original post with this supplier's name.

Seller is "mandigital"

[neevnav]

Bob! Thanks for this write up! You just saved me a good bit of money. Took about two hours, but I think I could do it in about an hour now. But your instructions were perfect, including the cursing part. Thanks again.

Mike

[tvd]

has any body had trouble with all the gauges not working some times.
we have a 2003 silverado some times we start it and no gauges work at all, shut it down then they might work after a restart. just wandering if anybody found a fix for my problem?
ty all tvd

[hillbilly2084]

Bob, thank you so much for this write up. I have had the recall done to my 2003 suburban and now it is acting up again. i am going to take it back to the dealership to see if they will fix it again if not i am going to tackle this project. Its kinda of funny to see that you are in Lompoc cause i am here right now on vacation, my in-laws live in the village. Thanks again, Bill.

[Bob T]

Speedometer went out; replaced stepper motor i.a.w. my own instructions, now works great. Took about an hour, including warmup time for the soldering iron.

This makes three stepper motors replaced in my cluster - oil pressure, fuel level, and speedometer. Should have replaced 'em all the first time, but I'm too cheap to fix something that isn't broken (yet.)

[bigbear]

after reading this thread i decided i could do mine myself. my uncles truck also had several guages out so i ordered a set for his and mine. i went and bought all the stuff to solder/unsolder and gave it a shot on his first of coarse. it was easy the hardest part was getting the clips on the bottom of the clear front cover off. ill be changing mine out this weekend. ive only got the speedo out on mine but im gonna go ahead and change them all while i have it apart. thanks for the write up by the way.

[Fln-Lcky19]

Performer, what type of christmas lights did you use? I was looking around a little for 3mm led's but could only find 5mm. Also, what were the resistors for and which ones did you use??

Steve

[mi.barrett]

Hi guys. I think this is the help I am looking for, but need some extra advice. My 2004 Suburban has 160k miles. I was in west Texas and passed a car at about 85 MPH (speed limit is 80 MPH out there). A guy in the back seat commented that my oil pressure was going up when I hit the high RPM's....nothing bad there. Well, as I let off the gas and went back to cruising RPM's, the pressure still rose. It pegged at 80 psi. We drove another 600 miles without any problems. At an idle the pressure reads about 70, but otherwise, it is at 80 psi. All other guagues work fine.

One more piece of information....I noticed driving this morning before sunrise that the oil pressure gauge seems to be more dim than the other gauges on the dash.

Should I try and replace part of the dash cluster? What do you guys think? thanks.

***EDIT... I drove at lunch today and noticed something different. Rather than going from 0 to 80 psi when the engine is started, it stalled just slightly at 40 psi, but then went to 70 psi...at an idle. It went to max when ever i started moving. The gauge seems to be reading, but just not right (hopefully). Again, engine is running fine.

[Bob T]

Originally Posted by mi.barrett

Hi guys. I think this is the help I am looking for, but need some extra advice. My 2004 Suburban has 160k miles. I was in west Texas and passed a car at about 85 MPH (speed limit is 80 MPH out there). A guy in the back seat commented that my oil pressure was going up when I hit the high RPM's....nothing bad there. Well, as I let off the gas and went back to cruising RPM's, the pressure still rose. It pegged at 80 psi. We drove another 600 miles without any problems. At an idle the pressure reads about 70, but otherwise, it is at 80 psi. All other guagues work fine.

One more piece of information....I noticed driving this morning before sunrise that the oil pressure gauge seems to be more dim than the other gauges on the dash.

Should I try and replace part of the dash cluster? What do you guys think? thanks.

***EDIT... I drove at lunch today and noticed something different. Rather than going from 0 to 80 psi when the engine is started, it stalled just slightly at 40 psi, but then went to 70 psi...at an idle. It went to max when ever i started moving. The gauge seems to be reading, but just not right (hopefully). Again, engine is running fine.

When I have a stepper motor problem the needle gets real erratic; not going to zero when the engine is shut off; sticking; jumping; going off scale high & low. I don't know about the "dim" part - how does a needle on a motor shaft get dim? If this is some kind of LCD or something like this it is a whole different animal - no stepper motor.