Dash display Haywire after parking on steep incline 45 degrees.

[Only Solid Mods]

I parked on about a 40 degree or 45 degree incline for about 30 minutes. Upon leaving none of the gauges in the cluster work 4 tachometer speedometer fuel oil temp Etc and the lights for abs airbag and four-wheel drive system are in a constant state of flutter not really all but flashing on bright and on dim very fast fluttering as well as the orange amber light for empty on the fuel tank. Clearly this was caused by this unusual thing I don't normally do and needed to I thought at this moment. Any thoughts on what's causing this?

 

[Will L.]

Battery acid leaking causing damage? Connections got pulled loose from battery shift?
Kids cup of koolaid finally tipped over and spilled on ecm/bcm?

 

[FellowTraveler]

First, you need to post up what truck, year, drive-train and other information.
Next, park on the same incline but backwards to how you first parked and see if it fixes the issue, if so, probably a through firewall harness or underhood harness to EMC is not secure or pins inside its sockets are pulled back and weight of the harness is enough to pull them away causing little or no contact.

 

[WarWagon]

Well this is a genuine ClusterF....

Maybe the battery acid poured out of the last good battery due to the angle. I have had many batteries give up when the starter current hits them. Rainwater getting somewhere or other leaks like oil messing electrical up... Not where I would start.

Start with the basics. Check battery cables for being loose. Load test each battery. A shorted cell could brown out things. The passenger side battery runs hotter and generally fails first. Grounds need to be cleaned including the one by the ABS unit on the frame rail. Engine running what is the voltage - aka testing the alternator.

These years, assuming 2006-07, are known for ignition switches that are criminally negligent in design, quality, reliability, and function. ( Some other GM cars were recalled as the switches didn't even meet GM's low specifications. ) They use spring tension to close a contact that gets weak and allows the contacts to arc and burn. This causes a brownout. low voltage, to things it powers. This includes the airbags. Outright replace the ignition switch if you have checked the above and this ClusterF is intermittent. One of the few parts you just throw at something due to known intermittent failures. Delay doing so and you will agree with my take on the situation after awhile.

Failed under warranty GM ignition swith from these years. Contacts bent up to show failure. Intermitant random codes, airbag lights, stabletrack lights, AC INOP sometimes. See the burnt contact? The "pins" drop as the gear moves and depend on the strips to "spring" closed. Getting a spring hot weakens it's spring tension. Off-Acc-Run-Start is normal to start the engine. Well the accessories are "opened" in the start position to give all the power to the starter. So the Acc contact arcs on-off for a moment as you quickly go from off to start. Older designs were a forced "on" contact that didn't depend on spring tension or overcoming cold grease to move.

 

[THEFERMANATOR]

First thing to do is disconnect BOTH batteries, then turn the ignition switch on, and then touch the positive and negative battery cables to each other for 1 minute. This zaps all the keep alive memory power and does a full reset. After doing this, seperate the battery cables, turn the key off, close the doors, then reconnect the batteries, and start it up to see if it's working. I highly doubt this is an ignition switch issue or connection problem. These clusters have several known issues and the power supply is one of them. They power up when they see the wake up signal on the j1850 data bus from the BCM, it is not an ignition switch input to it. Another very common issue when the power supply or solder's are failing is for the cluster module to get scrambled and not power up correctly when it sees the wake up signal. The reset will normally clear this. Another thing that can happen is weak batteries not dampening the alternators ac pulses, and bus triggered items not powering up correctly.

Try the reset and see what happens 1st.

 

[Only Solid Mods]

I have temporarily solved the issue but I have made two mistakes. First I should have taken a photo and a short 3 second video of what was happening with the lights that were pulsing and the gauge cluster not working. Second when I did take the dash apart I should have simply unplugged the instrument cluster and plugged it back in just to see what would happen with this single step.
At the time I was thinking that if I had it unplugged I would go ahead and disassemble the instrument cluster since I was this far - should have considered the shortest quickest option.
I now have all of my gauges working again although you can now hear a slight noise from the Step Up Motors when you turn the key to the on position and I think they didn't like being fiddled with. Also I no longer have bright strong backlighting through the whole instrument cluster - it's only bright in the center and dim on the right and out on the left. Seems kind strange.

 

[Only Solid Mods]

First, you need to post up what truck, year, drive-train and other information.
Next, park on the same incline but backwards to how you first parked and see if it fixes the issue, if so, probably a through firewall harness or underhood harness to EMC is not secure or pins inside its sockets are pulled back and weight of the harness is enough to pull them away causing little or no contact.

Sorry about the lack of info - I thought that was given simply chose to post a thread under LBZ LLY. I'll try to look closer at the details.

 

[Only Solid Mods]

Well this is a genuine ClusterF....

Maybe the battery acid poured out of the last good battery due to the angle. I have had many batteries give up when the starter current hits them. Rainwater getting somewhere or other leaks like oil messing electrical up... Not where I would start.

Start with the basics. Check battery cables for being loose. Load test each battery. A shorted cell could brown out things. The passenger side battery runs hotter and generally fails first. Grounds need to be cleaned including the one by the ABS unit on the frame rail. Engine running what is the voltage - aka testing the alternator.

These years, assuming 2006-07, are known for ignition switches that are criminally negligent in design, quality, reliability, and function. ( Some other GM cars were recalled as the switches didn't even meet GM's low specifications. ) They use spring tension to close a contact that gets weak and allows the contacts to arc and burn. This causes a brownout. low voltage, to things it powers. This includes the airbags. Outright replace the ignition switch if you have checked the above and this ClusterF is intermittent. One of the few parts you just throw at something due to known intermittent failures. Delay doing so and you will agree with my take on the situation after awhile.

Failed under warranty GM ignition swith from these years. Contacts bent up to show failure. Intermitant random codes, airbag lights, stabletrack lights, AC INOP sometimes. See the burnt contact? The "pins" drop as the gear moves and depend on the strips to "spring" closed. Getting a spring hot weakens it's spring tension. Off-Acc-Run-Start is normal to start the engine. Well the accessories are "opened" in the start position to give all the power to the starter. So the Acc contact arcs on-off for a moment as you quickly go from off to start. Older designs were a forced "on" contact that didn't depend on spring tension or overcoming cold grease to move.

View attachment 63432

War wagon I really appreciate this post there was a lot of good info in there inside I've been getting a lot of good information from everybody.

 

[WarWagon]

The lamps burn out... as noted you could have other problems with the cluster. My 2005 had the motors for the gauges replaced and re-lamped. The lamps are soldered on. The HVAC controls also have lamps burn out and mine didn't survive the repair attempt. Price it before you mess with the HVAC.

 

[Only Solid Mods]

Thanks - from the time I bought the truck a year ago from the original owner of the lights in the HVAC controls were already out. What was so strange is that after my little snafu last night all of the lights like background lighting we're still perfect and super bright - like a brand new. It was until I took the instrument cluster out and started screwing with it and put it back in that they were suddenly dim. Oh well, one for the books.

 

[Stoney]

Thefermanator.. does that truck work with 97's..I know it's not same truck but just curious

 

[THEFERMANATOR]

Thefermanator.. does that truck work with 97's..I know it's not same truck but just curious

I'm not following what you're asking here.

 

[THEFERMANATOR]

I have temporarily solved the issue but I have made two mistakes. First I should have taken a photo and a short 3 second video of what was happening with the lights that were pulsing and the gauge cluster not working. Second when I did take the dash apart I should have simply unplugged the instrument cluster and plugged it back in just to see what would happen with this single step.
At the time I was thinking that if I had it unplugged I would go ahead and disassemble the instrument cluster since I was this far - should have considered the shortest quickest option.
I now have all of my gauges working again although you can now hear a slight noise from the Step Up Motors when you turn the key to the on position and I think they didn't like being fiddled with. Also I no longer have bright strong backlighting through the whole instrument cluster - it's only bright in the center and dim on the right and out on the left. Seems kind strange.

If you took the cluster apart, you probably loosened some of the solder joints.