Swapped AU2 cluster into AU3 - now strange things happening

**asimplelife** · 18-10-2024, 10:21 PM

Have an AU3 Futura i6 auto wagon.
Intermittently the fuel gauge goes to zero. Swapping the sender made no difference. So today I swapped in a spare cluster from an AU2 SR i6 auto wagon I'd wrecked and knew had no problems.

I thought I did a quick test after I plugged it in and the cruise control was working and all the lights.
However I then took it on a drive and noticed it felt sluggish taking off. After a while I realised it was not changing gear. I believe it is in 3rd all the time. The overdrive button does not register on the cluster. Nor does the cruise control now (if it did before). The temp gauge was also no longer working. Indicators, lights, fuel gauge, tacho, speedo and odometer are still working.

I hadn't read anything before that said there was any difference between an AU2 and AU3 cluster?
It's not a big deal as I'll just put the original one back tomorrow and hopefully it's all back to normal. I was curious what the problem might be though. As had been planning to do an XR cluster upgrade to another car I have.
I'll try Forscan first and see what it says. There were no errors before I did the cluster swap.

There is something else that could be involved.
The AU3 Futura has after market dual fuel lpg. It's the cheaper not injection setup. It has it's own separate lpg guage. So I'd assumed there was no involvement with the cluster. The wrecked AU2 SR was petrol only.

And just to cover everything, the AU3 Futura also has REX entertainment installed. From what I can understand these are most likely dealer fitted. But I hadn't detected any interaction with the cluster.

**asimplelife** · 19-10-2024, 10:15 AM

I looked further in the forums last night and couldn't find any hints about what might be my problem. That said, I also couldn't find a thread where someone was just swapping a like for like low series cluster. They were all about low to high series, and AU1 to AU2/3 conversions.

Ran Forscan and the only DTC error was "Code C1781 - Engine coolant temperature signal missing / fault" which I knew. Nothing about the transmission problems. Nor about no cruise control.

Time to put the original back in. Wish me luck

I'm already supposed to be on the road to Canberra from Melbourne...and I managed to break my drivers seat while trying to lever out the cluster...the second one recently...which has to be replaced now too

Which could all lead to the question...what was I thinking to attempt a non priority task before a long road trip?...well...

**asimplelife** · 19-10-2024, 10:57 AM

Problem solved....thank goodness.
Another one of my shoddy mechanic jobs.
The problem was I had not pushed one of the two connectors to the cluster hard enough.
I was aware that the connector on the passenger side had not clicked like the driver side one.
I had a few attempts at it...but didn't want to push too hard and break anything.

Before removing the replacement cluster, I pulled on that connector and it came away...which I should have checked in the first place.
This time I persevered with it until it did click.
Then of course all the faults disappeared :/

Now to test if it actually resolves my intermittent petrol gauge problem with going to zero...which is probably won't