Thor - 2006 Dodge Tachometer issues

[Mopar1973Man]

This is a known issue of the 2006 Dodge Ram cluster where the tachometer will be wild, erratic, or possibly dead or stuck. The fix is extremely simple. 

 

DISCLAIMER: If you do not have soldering experience please do not attempt this repair you might cause more damage to the cluster, electronics, or the truck. 

 

On Thor, since I purchased the truck the tachometer would sometimes work fine and on other days it would show wildly high RPMs like 4,000 while cruising 65 MPH in 6th gear. This is due to the fact when they manufacture the clusters they use lead-free solder and which tends to break down and then connections get weak. I just happen to buy a brand-new soldering iron. Now you need to remove the cluster from the dash which is not hard at all. Two screws on the bottom of the knee bolster and pull carefully at the top. This can be removed. Then the bezel for the stereo can be removed just lightly tug on the bezel it should unsnap from the dash base. Then there is 2 screw on the bottom of the cluster bezel then lightly tug and the entire cluster bezel will come out. Now the cluster has 4 screws to remove two on the top and two on the bottom. This is a bit tricky the cluster should have 3 wiring connectors that are not easy to see but the release for the locks is on top of each plug. Carefully pull each connector. Now you can remove the cluster.

 

Now I brought the cluster inside the house and proceeded to remove all the screws on the back of the black plastic cover so as to expose the circuit board below. Now I know currently I don't have photos of this but I will. As you look at the back of the circuit board there are 3 IC chips with about 16 or 18 legs. These are the ones I reflowed the solder on. With the new tip, I heated and tinned the tip and wiped the solder off. Now with the very tip of the soldering iron, I place it on each leg carefully and heated and flowed the solder again. Now after you finish one chip grab your phone and put it into camera mode on my Android I set it for 3x magnification so I can really look closely. Now you need to verify that there are no soldering bridges between the legs of each and every chip if there are fix any solder bridges before you put the cluster into service it will cause damage and possibly require replacement. Now continue on to the next chip and verify after reflowing the solder. 

 

After the reflow, you can remove the cluster lens plastic and clean the plastic but be careful not to mess with the needles of the gauges and be careful assembling again for the trip button so that you don't break the trip button. Now you can redo all the screws for the back cover. Now the few forum post I read about this some say shim the right side of the board or different chips need to be reflowed, etc. At any rate, if the tach isn't working right it is a solder joint malfunction. Once the cluster is all assembled again you can take it out to the truck and test the cluster. Plug it in and fire up the truck and see if the tachometer is reading correctly. 

 

Before my tachometer would show 0 RPM at idle and 4,000 RPMs at 65 MPH in 6th gear. Now it shows correct at 800 RPM at idle and 2,100 RPM at 65 MPH. 

 

 

[Mopar1973Man]

There is the Elite article and the standard article as well.