gauge's in dash not working

[Nath.]

as above, my brothers 60k miles 2002 130 tdi sport was misbehaving last week and he asked me to look at it for him ( he ain't got a clue what end of a screwdriver goes in the screw )

anyway the fuel and volt gauge's were intermittent, if they were off and you gave the dash a thump or just put ignition off/on a few times they would work again for a bit

so the plan was to disconnect battery, remove airbag, steering wheel and dash binnacle and have a look

no chance of removing airbag as one of the clips was broken and only one side would pop out making it a case of rip it off and brake it or have another idea

managed to remove all the clock binnacle and steering column trim

then found that the steering wheel not only tilts up/down but comes out/in too
so checked my FR and that was the same never knew that

this made moor room to remove the dash binnacle and it came out well easy, looked at it and found dirty/tarnished/corroded pins in the multi plug behind the speedo, cleaned them up with a small retractable fiberglass pencil type brush and put it all back together

so far so good and I also removed the trumpet thing inside his air box and advised him to get a pd160 intake and green filter ( there is now way he will but you never know )

anyway my question is, has anyone else had this problem ?, did a search and found nothing

 

[gazjones]

not read about any problems like that but might help somone in the future good work nath. easy to remove instrument cluster then?

 

[Nath.]

^^^^^for me yes after I found that the steering wheel moves in/out

 

[gazjones]

thats one of the features in the brochure!!!! take it you just have to remove the few screws around the cluster then and it falls out with no trouble at all

 

[Nath.]

I wouldn't say that it falls out, you need to fiddle it a bit like the crypton factor

with the steering wheel off it would fall out yes

 

[oli_c]

I had a vaguely similar problem, my instrument cluster went completely dead and it ended up costing me £800 to get it fixed! My one was completely buggered and they had to replace it with a new one, along with various other parts connecting it to the ECU. Somehow it also managed to immobilise the car whenever the engine was turned off, so resetting the battery was the only way of starting the car.

 

[evo2345]

iv had my car nearly two years now and i only found out last week by accident the Steering coloumn comes out

 

[Nath.]

^^^^^^^^ nearly 2 years for me

 

[air121005]

then found that the steering wheel not only tilts up/down but comes out/in too

after reading this, tried it this morning, what a result!

I also removed the trumpet thing inside his air box

would have thought removing the trumpet bit that attaches to the MAF would cause more harm than good
does it not work in the same way as do inlet trumpets on carb throttle bodies
iirc, if you don't have the correct length of trumpet on a throotle body this causes a severe loss of power & effieciency

i'd liked to be proved wrong, so i could remove mine to gain a little

 

[gazjones]

removed my trumpet and felt better you dont have trumpet in and induction kit do you. my way of thinking

 

[evo2345]

i removed mine two, to me it justs restrictive

 

[gazjones]

dont think im losing power due to it.

 

[rashcupra]

when i done mine it made the recirculating valve sound alot better! and felt the same tbh

 

[air121005]

looks like its designed to create the correct flow of air to pass through the MAF

but seen as that 3 of you have already given the removal of it the thumbs up, the next time i open the airbox (once i've taken off the vacuum sensor box, and then the strutbrace ) i might give it a try!

 

[gazjones]

the tdi trumpet is even longer than the 20vt one