Brand Noobie from Ohio

[OH240SE]

Greetings to all, i live in Ohio and i just bought myself a 91 S13 Coupe. I'm happy as hell, but the problem is it has the Digital Speedo and the Hud. Neither of them work and it seems like a virus is spreading through my electricals. My odometer and trip have stopped working as well, and just lately my cruise control has given up on me. I dont know much about wireing/electricals, and I am wondering if any of you fellow Nissan owners could help me out with any advice on how to properly detect and eliminate these problems.

Any advice will be greatly appreciated.

Also, if anyone also uses AIM my screenname is AJB0021. I'm in a bind because i dont know if i need a new gauge cluster, or if its a grounding problem... Everything else on the car works. Someone help me out please. I have also replaced the fuses, except for those under the air dam.

Many Thanks,

L8r

well i dont know what you can do. maybe take it into the nissan dealer to get it checked out, or maybe a local shop would be cheaper. looks like soultron's got a drifting budddy in ohio, he'll be happy. haha.

[HX-50]

Welcome, always good to see more ohio people on here, there's a lot of us from the cleveland/akron area on here

[OH240SE]

thanks for the advice, fellas

i'm pretty close to akron, i live in toledo

[Tighty_wh1tey]

a buddy of mine had a gauge problem before and all he needed to do was disconect the battery and let the system reset itself and then they worked fine. its a longshot but its worth a try

[OH240SE]

thanks tighty
tried that again, but no dice....

the weird thing about the HUD and the speedo is sometimes it will come on for a sec but it wont register any speed then it goes back off. just reads 0mph for about 7secs and then nothing

[Drift For Food]

Maybe it's a bad ground wire. I'm not sure how much you know about electronics though, so I don't know how much you are willing to do.

Basically, you should be able to take the dash off and then the instrument cluster. From there you can check voltages to see if you're getting power. It's an old car, so the ground may have losened or rusted some. You may just have to find the ground wire and where it's fastened and just clean the connection(sand paper) and screw the wire back on. I did this with my Ranger to get my Head Unit to work. The ground was all rusted and had low voltage running through it, 7 volts tops. My HU wouldn't turn on, did once very breifly. I cleaned the ground and all was good, full 12 volts and everything running well. It's something to check. Remember, safety, don't go electricuting yourself, lol. You can check the resistance with an ohm meter with the battery disconnected.

[OH240SE]

Thanks alot Drft4Food

Good lookin out, i dont know much about electronics but i'm not afraid to learn. I just wanted to know what i was looking for before i tore apart the dash. When i replaced the clutch i noticed that there was a screw with a wire-connection near the exhaust somewhere that wasn't connected to anything, maybe thats the problem.

Hopefully that will fix it

I dont want to go into this blind, thats the only thing.

I greatly appreciate yours, and everyone else's insite.

Thanks again

AJB

[OH240SE]

problem is, i'm not sure where or what that little screw and the wire connection connects to...

[Tighty_wh1tey]

go to a local parts store and pick up a service manual with wireing diagrams and all that. should be like 8 bucs but they come in handy.

[Drift For Food]

Yeah, you can get a Haynes manual at Napa for a few bucks, and it has a nice basic run down of the whole car, including wiring diagrams for lights, instrument cluster, etc... It would help you finding which wire is the ground wire. Note, there are several ground wires throught the car. The wire near your exaust may be nothing(for trailer wiring kit maybe?). The ground wire for your guage cluster should be under your dash somewhere. A wiring diagram will tell you which color to look for, usually cark, black mainly, but I've seen brown as well. It should come from the guage cluster and screw to the body somewhere nearby.

[OH240SE]

Thanks again

as soon as i can fix my old man's camera i'll figure out how to toss some pictures and videos on here

[ameic]

I have exactly the same digital speedo problem.. ive taken my digital speedo cluster to an electronic friend of mine who was resoldered most of the capacitors and i still have the problem, although this has worked for some people.. so it might pay to take your cluster out and take it to a good electonics repairer and ask him to look for any weak cold solder joints (dry joints) my unit did have several dry joints but the 'turn on for a few seconds then turn off' problem still persists.. im going o buy a working unit and compare them to see what the problem is.. oh and dont worry buying the s13 service manual as it dosnt go into enough detail about the actuall speedo its self.. i rang nissan japan today as here in australia we have to import the s13's (180sx,silvia,240sx) to find a wireing diagram but i couldnt find anyone who could help me.. plus it was costing me a fortune.

If you can ring Nissan America and some how find a wiring diagram of the specific electonic speedo cluster from a service center (spare parts wont be able to help you) could u PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE email it to me as it will make defining this problem soo much easier and maybe we can finally find the real cause of this problem

u can buy replace ment chips for the flouresant pannel and the transistor array by putting the chip number in google and following the path.. the only issue is the little square chip is reprogramable.. so even if u can get the chip u might need the 'nissan digital speedo' program that is installed.. i havnt tryed this but that is my friends theory.. if i find anything i will let u know.. if u could do the same

please notify me of any further posts to this thread though email as i probably wont be checking this forum again -- > nismad@iprimus.com.au

thanks in advance and good luck with the problem

PS ive tryed the unit in two different s13's and they both have the same problem so its not wiring unless its a freak coinsidance

Gareth

[OH240SE]

yeah i'll definately let you know about that as soon as i find out more, thanks for the advice as well.

[AtroXR7]

Just saying hi, im local to OH240SE, and just as into drifting. I drive a 96 cougar (rwd, not a lame new edge). Unfortunately they only come in automatic and installing a manual involves welding up and extention box and fitting a clutch pedal assembly in... for now im just gonna modify the valvebody to get the car shifting as fast as i need it too... Not that It matters... the roads are all WAY to straight around here.

[OH240SE]

yea man aint that a shame... but welcome again, none the less

[soultron]

Maybe you guys could meet up with us somewhere.
we talk alot of smack but we don't bite.
Seriously though, it's cool to get together with others interested in this. and to the guy with the cougar, nice.
put some pics up guy.

[OH240SE]

Keep me posted, on times and places of where and when to meet up. I'm barely a novice when it comes to drifting, and i'm short on money so i wont be beating on my car much because i dont have the loot to repair it or tow it back to toledo.

[AtroXR7]

http://glowkraft.ath.cx/atroxr7/03cj_35.jpg
http://glowkraft.ath.cx/atroxr7/rearatcj.jpg
http://glowkraft.ath.cx/atroxr7/enginebay3.jpg

These pics are all from last year. Quite a bit has changed since. I would be a lot further along with new modification ideas but I was plagued with vandalism this spring and im still finishing up on fixing all of it. The wing is gone, whole trunk lid is smoothed out now since someone popped out my lock cylinder and busted up my custom made wing. Oh well, I think i like it better smooth anyway. Engine is stock still basic intake work, 2 1/4" dual exhaust catback. I have a 3.73 diff. gear with a limited slip now, and Im waiting for a friend to ship my new torque converter and alum. driveshaft to me. Everything else on the car is really basic performance parts or eye candy. *edit* oh yeah, made myself a front strut tower bar as you can see and im looking into getting some subframe connectors and a rear strut tower bar built since I no longer have fab shop access.

But yeah, keep me updated on any meets you guys put together. I'd love to come out and talk with more guys that would rather slide that go straight or grip.