recently switched to an 04 sunfire coupe and the cluster was acting strangely. originally the odometer would be constantly flickering with messed up characters. didn't really consider this a problem since a cluster swap is rarely difficult and i would grab one from the wreckers asap. before i could get around to that the gauges went crazy, first the temp gauge suddenly started climbing. finally went all the way past max (i would estimate the temp of the car parked is about 350, maybe 400. went right past all the numbers and burred itself over the tach gauge (isn't there usually a little pin to stop the needle from actually passing the max of the gauge on most cars?). which locked that one down and then it failed as well (RPMs are always at zero). then the speedometer started climbing, got to about 120 kph (particularly odd since i was on residential streets coming home doing maybe 30kph) and froze there. so thats the situation i am in right now, my car is parked, its 350+ degrees, with no engine rpm and apparently moving at 120 kph. is this a problem beyond replacing a wonky gauge cluster? was planing to hit a wreckers later today if thats the only thing needed but if someone has heard a a similar problem thats usually caused by something else it would be nice to know before i head there. thanks.

continued reading all the cluster messages in here (good god there are a lot of them) and tried disconnecting the battery for a few minutes, that finally reset all the gauges to normal (still gonna make a run to the wreckers tho, wanted to find a better trunk lid anyways so might as well grab another cluster just to be safe)

I had the same issue except it was just the tach and the speed. I ended up just getting a few stepper motors, tore my cluster apart, had a friend help de-solder, re-solder the new stepper motors in place. Now my gauge works like a charm (off by 2 mph's, but don't really care). This was about 8 months ago and have not had any issues since.

i had considered this but was somewhat put off by all the mentions of problems removing the needles and messing up the 2000+ year clusters. since i had a few things i wanted to pick up at the wreckers anyways just grabbed a cluster from an 05, hopefully that one will work better. the gauges on the old cluster did reset to 0 finally after disconnecting the battery but they tend to go again after driving for any length of time.will swap clusters on the weekend when i have time off (just too dark after work this time of year to bother trying during the week) and hope this replacement cluster isn't damaged.

So did you swap it out? I have to do this on a friends car, just unplug and replace right no theft problems etc..?

The issue with pulling the needles is that you run a risk of not having accurate temp/tach/speed/gas. You have to be extra careful to mark the positions of the needles before taking off. then once you take them off the front part of the gauge comes off leaving the circuit board. desolder the 4 points for each stepper motors, re solder, re assemble, and then make sure you put the needles back on in the correct position.
Getting th needles accurate took a while. but to make sure the speed is close to accurate I used speed apps for my phone and tweaked it that way. Getting a new cluster from the Junker is easier than that, but I found a bad one, and said why not try it.

Well, seems i'm in much the same situation, swapped in the replacement cluster from the wreckers and found i have no odometer, only 2 bulbs working on either sides of the cluster and after hitting empty i gassed op and the fuel gauge is now pointing at 200 kph. since the old cluster can be reset by disconnecting the battery AND it is fully back lit so it can actually be read at night i plan to swap it back in for the time being and see about pulling apart the one from the wreckers and putting in some new stepper motors and replacing the bulbs. maybe try and install some leds since i would either have it successfully open or destroyed anyways

well, swapped back the old cluster and it seems to be working perfectly fine, always had the odometer flickering fairly regularly and could never get the trip meter to display before, now everything displays solidly and ne'er a quiver from the gauges. still, I don't have much faith in it so i will be looking into replacing the stepper motors and replacing bulbs on the cluster from the wreckers when i have time and seeing if i can get that one working well.

well, got all the needles off with no problem leaving the pins behind (lot easier than i expected from what i read in various posts) then i realized after the fact that since i was planning on replacing the stepper motors anyways i could have just ripped the buggers out and to hell with the pins. ahh well, looking at the leds inside i can see why so few of them were working. those things all look rather dark and discolored, even the ones that work. perhaps from the long exposure in the wreckers or from whatever caused the car to be at the wreckers in the first place. going to have to call around when i can to try and find some stepper motors and look into what leds are needed for replacements now.

I know what you are talking about. The cluster circuit board I pulled from the junker was covered in a few layers of dirt. I also noticed that whoever owned the car before, decided to wad a ball of electrical tape and shove it in the hole for the service light. when I get off work, I will see if I can pull up the parts number for the stepper motors that I got.

About the leds, If you were to change them out to a different color, how are you going to go around the red film on the black gauge face?

So no worries with swapping clusters assuming that the new cluster from the yard works? There is no theft function here?

nope, no theft problems, popped the wrecker cluster in and it worked as well as a cluster with mostly burned out lights could work (it was from an 05 sunfire going into an 04). just looking into getting replacement stepper motors and leds locally to get at least one cluster working perfectly.

How easy was it to pull the cluster out?? I have the same issue with my cluster (2005 Sunfire),and I haven't found any information on how to get the cluster out of the dashboard. Any help would be appreciated.

Take top of the dash off... instructions here:

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=how+to+remove+sunfire+dash+top+pad

^ It will even give you links to this forum. Neat stuff.