I have a 4700 international and the gauges dont work until after a few minutes of running then they all of a sudden come on and work fine. I have been reading it is caused by bad solder joints. I removed the dash and I can see some small cracks in the joints but it doesnt appear that it would cause no connection at all. Does anyone have pics of what to look for?
If you can see cracks, take a small soldering iron and electrical solder w rosin core flux, and re wet those joints. You can't see a dry solder joint easily, I've always heard to re wet anything that could be the issue.
My guage would work till I hit a bump then it was a roll of the dice what would work or wouldn't. Even the dash lights were affected. I ended up sending my dash out to a place in Virginia I do believe. I'm not very good with a soldering iron so the $200 or whatever it was to repair it was fine by me. I figured the speeding ticket could be more than that.
I had a similar problem in my 1990 International 4900. I had a few mechanics fix it, and then there would be issues again. The dash area on these trucks get dirty corroded and vibrate to death. I had the dealer install a whole new dash panel with gauges and the problems are gone.
If your instrument panel is like the one I fixed (1999 4700) it has three plugs. Check the gray or maybe black wire coming into the bottom of the middle plug. I think it is the second wire from the bottom on the passenger side of the plug. The terminal in the connector on the panel was loose, making intermittent connection, sometimes it stopped working when hitting a bump, or sometimes just randomly. I pushed the spade over a little with a pick and got it to make reliable contact. That was 10k miles ago, worked ever since. Maybe you will get lucky and that’s all it is. I discovered it by sticking my hand down behind the cluster after taking the dash cap off and jiggling wires until I triggered the malfunction.
There is a plastic cover on the forward side of the bulkhead where all your wiring comes into the cab. Remove the plastic cover you will see a ground cable with a 1/4" bolt passing through the lug into the bulkhead. On the interior side is a handful of grounds hanging off that screw with a nut to secure. Often times the guy will run the screw in from the front, then when they put the eyes on the interior side and run the nut down , it will back the screw out just enough to cause grief. I would suggest,split it all, polish all the grounds and rescue, with a helper so you can get both sides tight. BTW , same configuration in 4700, 4900 & 8100 series. There were a few vocational models that used the same cab as well. Just something to check and be aware of.
It ended up being a solder joint hard to believe a little crack in that joint caused it but it's good now. Thanks
OUCH,, $$$