Date:         Sun, 13 Apr 2008 18:41:47 -0500
Reply-To:     Jim Felder <jim.felder@GMAIL.COM>
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From:         Jim Felder <jim.felder@GMAIL.COM>
Subject:      Need to repair/replace deteriorated instrument panel connector
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The instrument panel in my 90 has been removed and replaced one too many
times. The foil circuit is ruined at the long connector. I spent half the
afternoon gluing a plastic replacement in place to go under the folded foil,
but the copper connector on the blue foil was in bad shape and I never got
it to work right. When my headlights are on, the leds go crazy and the tach
drops and the clock display goes blank. I know for certain that this is all
related to this connector, not ground wires. I got it to work momentarily by
holding it a certain way, but then more plastic crumbled and removing the
connector degraded the copper strips even more.
So now I have three possible choices. Replace the foil wiring, get a used
instrument cluster in better shape than mine, or try to solder and wire up
the existing connector copper to new wires, cut the long connector off and
have individual wires go to the extensions soldered to the copper strips.

Soldering to those copper strips looks iffy.

Any thoughts?

Jim