Okay I bought my car last october and shes been sitting in the garage waiting on the tranny to be done. I noticed that when you turn the car on the check engine light doesnt come on. So I took the cluster out and found out that the bulb is gone, for some reason the guy before me took it out. What I need to know is how hard is it to solder the bulb back in, what kind of bulb is it, can you take the circuit board off of the back of the cluster and how? Thanks in advance for any help.

 

nobody?

 

Go ask advance auto, they have those small bulbs... Usually they dont require a hard connection though, just socket type of deal.

 

not the check engine bulb it actually goes into its own little pocket and is soldered onto the circuit board

 

Before you sink any more money/effort in to the car, I'd suggest checking the codes. The previous owner may have taken the bulb out to protect against you finding something really bad going on with the car.

Do you think there is any possibility that the solder cracked and the bulb fell out? (You should be able to tell by looking with a magnifying glass.)

You may be better off getting a new cluster. (You can find services that will calibrate your odometer on a new/used cluster.)

Or... if you really want to solder, you may be able to steal the skip shift bulb and put it in the check engine slot. (The skip shift bulb gets annoying anyway, especially if you put in a CAGS eliminator. I have a CAGS eliminator and covered up my bulb with electrical tape so I wouldn't see it.)

 

It's not a solder joint it is a twist plug that sits on top of the solder beads on the board. Look like the picture attached. I fiddled with the damn things when I switched to LED lights in the dash.