I bought my daughters 1993 SC300 late last year.

One in the to do list was to replace the guage needles sionce none of it are lit up. Backlight is fine with no dark spots.

It is a coomon enough issue with the SC to have the needles bad so this was automatically put in the to do list.

This weekend my daughter called and tells me that on a few occassion the needles on the dash came on for a split second and off again. This suggests that it is possibly a lose connection somewhere in the cluster.

I might be able to see thie car this weekend and will have a limited timje to look it over. Any suggestions where to start?

 

The LED strip on the needles has lose contact or the dimmer has messed them up I believe.

Lextech will take your cluster and rebuild it lights wise to whatever you want. (O.L.T. = Member name)

On iPhone and energy drink tweaking so some information may not be perfect lmao

 

If the dimmer was the issue, then the whole cluster would blink - needles, and back lighting

In this case it is just the needles.

 

i thought o.l.t stopped taking needles??

 

The needles fail due to the dimmer. He says something about this on the website. Usually if you turn your head lights on it'll change the needle "dancing".

You can buy replacement needles off the website.

 

TechGreek,

If the needles every once in a while comes on, this suggests that the needles LED are fine. As suggested earlier, it may be a lose connection. Maybe someone here experienced something similar and may be able to cue me in to where the problem was.

 

http://lextech.org/forums/index.php?topic=7.0

Your issue is incredibly common on Lexus vehicles of our era.

Unless your needles all flicker on and off at once together.

 

AhA - that may be the keywords I should be using.

On my daughters car the needles are off most of the time. Sometimes it comes on (ALL of them) at the same time and goes right back off. I read through LexTech's write up detailing the cause for "dancing" needles. But that would only apply to individual needles. In this case, all the needles go on, then go off momentarily.

In comparison to my car which will have a portion of the gas needle blinking to indicate that the LED is on the way out. I know this to be the issue that you are describing. Replacing the needles on my car is in the to do list.

 

If the entire cluster is blinking needles wise you'll need to trace down the wiring. I know the clusters are known to have bad solder joints

 

The backlighting is is OK, just the needles. When she comes over this weekend, I will have a chance to check the wiring.

 

Try slapping the top of your dash once or twice. It worked for me when half my cluster was out..!

 

Mine is doing this too. Please let update the thread if your figure out what is wrong

 

I am going to try the SLAP fix that scENFORCER suggested. If not, i will open it up and touch all the wires and contact points.

 

Trust me, it's the needles.... No matter how much you don't want it to be. Fix them and call it a day. It's not very expensive and it will be a world of difference. Mine flickered for years before they were all totally out.