So who wants a Digi Dash out of an 84 Coupe?

Yep got it at the spokane Pull'n'save out of a Fwd 5sp 84 coupe with a

luggage rack

It has 140k on it looks really clean.

I would have posted in the fs section, but idk if I'm gonna sell it or keep it.

It all depends on the interest.

 

Twitch

so you tested it and everything works?

or you just bought it hoping it is not dead like they all are..

 

good luck tho.

so you tested it and everything works?

or you just bought it hoping it is not dead like they all are..

 

good luck tho.

 

I was unable to obtain a battery (people were being sorta snobbish today)

so I couldn't test it, but I'm hoping all is good!

Is there any way to resistance test it to see if its good?

 

Twitch

 

PS: I'll get pics up soon, I'm unable to right now cuz I'm posting on my

phone

 

Twitch

my 10 dollar bet: Its bad, like they ALL are..

finding a working one of these digis is harder than finding a nugget of gold in , well, yeah....

I wouldnt bet it works either.. low mileage doesnt mean anything with them.. I had 2 to try.. 1 a 126K mile one..and another had 226K... the 226K one worked... the 126K ..nope no go. You cant say the ALL are bad..cause thats just not true... but MOST are. I have a working one... so that has to mean something.. but it took trying out about 8-10 of them first.

If you go back to PNS anytime soon, you might cut the dash's harness ends out of the car; it might help someone swap over to analog later.

i havent seen one of these digi dashes lit up, is it a VFD like the clock is in the rest of them? green glowing stuff

 

VFD = Vaccum floresent display

Here is a pic of mine lit up. The only thing that doesnt work on it is the clock...but the imprortant stuff does:

 

Weird thing is that all the 4wd ea81t coupe digi dash's I have found are dead paper weights. The front wheel drive ones seem to work fine for longer. Don't know if that is a chance thing or if there is a difference between the two?

 

I will take it if you want to sell it or trade?

I wouldnt bet it works either.. low mileage doesnt mean anything with them.. I had 2 to try.. 1 a 126K mile one..and another had 226K... the 226K one worked... the 126K ..nope no go. You cant say the ALL are bad..cause thats just not true... but MOST are. I have a working one... so that has to mean something.. but it took trying out about 8-10 of them first.

 

Well Connie, I tried to test it later, and the car I pulled out of, had the battery terminals pulled when I got back

So there was no testing it anyway.

Has anybody done ANY testing with a multimeter?

I know a lot of computer components are controlled by voltage moving

switches and those switches must have some sort of resistance.

Does anybody have a dead digidash that they would be willing to test

against mine?

Like a point to point resistance test.

 

I will take it if you want to sell it or trade?

 

Well, what can you offer you offer?

 

Twitch

This sucks cause I just tossed out about 5 bad ones of these and only kept my good one.

What I do know is there is a VR behind the clock assembly that is the culprit for the failure. Problem is... if there was an electrical problem ( IE the alt going bad ) it usually causes this to blow. It will give you a warning buzz..but that gives you about 30 seconds to turn it off before it blows.

 

You have to remember, these are 25 year old parts.

 

Best bet would be to find someone who has a digi car and plug it in to test it.

same comparison is digi dash 25 years old to aftermarket Kraco car stereo 25 years old, they arent gonna work.

 

25 year old speaker, work like crap. just not meant to last, not manufactured to last, not gonna work.

 

 

after messing around with these, the only way to get around it is to swap to analog. done.

 

But, I do wish you luck on this for real. if you got a good one, cool.

alright that pic helps, it is a big VFD, well that sucks because they can go wrong so many different ways....

 

since they are big they are a little more prone to cracking letting the gas out, the glowing parts can short put or break connections and the voltage regulator was probally being taxed from the factory and let out.

 

some one said the clocks go bad from a loose solder point in the assembly but all the clocks i have taken out i popped the back off of and the resistor thats taking the brunt of the juice comming in is always fried to a crisp. they may work but i dont bother. and this is on the tiny clock, imagine that big display, even if they are broken up into groups they are still pretty big.

We have been over this topic many many times over the past few years and we are aware of what causes the failures in these Digi dashes... and havent been able to find an alternative VR for them to replace when failure occurs. When there is an electrical problem in the system of the car it blows out the VR..and sometimes takes some other components out in the process ( I happen to build and work on circut boards and have for over 20 years along with other board members who are also electrical techs) we have studied this problem in depth extensively. We have been trying to repair them because an analog swap is not an easy task since it is not plug and play. I alone have been looking into a repair for over a year and a half now..and some have been searching longer.

 

The only reason I am not doing the analog swap is cause my coupe is being fully restored and will be spending the rest of its life as a show car and living inside in the garage

Edited July 1, 200916 yr by Bucky92

Just curious if anyone has sent one of these dead Digi-dashes to Dakota Digital to see what they have to say about it.

after messing around with these, the only way to get around it is to swap to analog. done.

 

After going through my own digi-dash dilemma and had to weigh my options. I could repair my original dash, source a used pre-owned unit, build my own gauge panel or swap to the analog cluster.

 

I decided to keep my car as original as possible and that meant using as many factory parts as possible. I swapped in the analog cluster from a lower trim EA81T wagon and in doing so, was forced to install the matching analog dash harness.

 

While it wasn't truly "plug-and-play" all the swap required was unplugging a bunch of electrical connectors and snaking the harness out from behind a sharp, metal dashboard while keeping my fingers and my harness intact.

 

I also had to manufacture a few jumper harnesses to connect a few components. (Brake switches, found a spare power source for some aftermarket parts, etc.) I just went to the junkyard and harvested a few sets of OEM male/female connectors to use, in case I ever had an oppourtunity to swap back to the digi set up.

 

The swap took me a few weeks of working on it, along with a ton of other related projects for last year's WCSS. I wouldn't recomment it to the novice mechanic, but it is by no means an impossible task. If you're sick of swapping in new digi-dashes as each old one finally croaks, take a look into finding the space and the parts, after mine was done, it looked great!

 

It was more functional, easier to read and more reliable than the digi dash. I did lose the dual trip meters and the timer, but being able to read the engine RPM and vehicle speed over a long trip were more important to me, given the questionable durability of the originally installed digital dash.

 

Still have all the old parts too, and another vehichle to potentially swap over. If I do, I promise to do a better job documenting it than with the first conversion... http://www.ultimatesubaru.org/forum/showthread.php?t=89603&highlight=digi+analog+harness&page=3

If the problem is that the voltage regulator dies, that should be pretty easy to replace. Anybody got one that I can poke and prod?

If the problem is that the voltage regulator dies, that should be pretty easy to replace. Anybody got one that I can poke and prod?

 

no, the result of the voltage regulator going out is it destroys the digidash to never work again, kinda like when a lightbulb burns out, its done for good......ok'

 

bh

What, exactly, is the mode of failure? Does it burn traces? Cook off the bakelite....what exactly dies?

I'm interested in your digital dash that you found. I am picking up a T-coupe w/ blown digi next week.

 

Where in Idaho are you?