Friday, November 18, 2011

Fixing the Clock on a Toyota Corolla

Our Toyota Corolla's clock had stop working. It worked intermittently for a while, but then stopped completely. I watched a YouTube video on how to fix it. The video was nice, but lacking details that a female would probably want to know. Also, the sound was really low, so here's my own tutorial.

1) Use a flat head screwdriver to pry up the plastic piece surrounding the shifting thing. (Wow. Thank God for pictures. Who knew my car part vocabulary was this atrocious?!)

You have to lift up firmly until it pops off.

2) Grab the center knob of the A/C controls and pull straight out. Then use a Phillips head screwdriver to take out the one screw underneath.



3) Pull out the face of the control piece. Once again, measured force is required.


4) Disconnect the wires that are going to the back of the clock.


5) Pull out the clock. I thought this was the hardest part. It's held in by four tabs, two on either side of the clock, and it's near impossible to hold all four down at once so that you can remove the clock. You, dear reader, will benefit from my pain and blood loss by observing the little trick I came up with. Pull out one side of the case so that you can insert a credit card. Then pull apart the other side.

6) Find the four, numbered chips nearest the white connector. The clock has likely stopped working because the soldered connection on one or more has failed. On my clock, you could not see anything wrong. I simply touched my (hot) soldering iron to each side of each chip to refresh the solder. You could also add more solder if you have some on hand.



7) Plug the clock back in and turn the car on. (No need to start it.) Your clock should work! If not, perhaps the soldering didn't take. Try again or perhaps there's another issue...

4 comments:

  1. Thank you!!! Worked like a charm. Added a bit of soldering too.

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  2. I had no trouble with the tabs, just got one at a time. Refreshing solder didn't help and adding solder didn't help!
    Off to buy a new clock

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  3. I had a hard time getting those clips released so I could get the clock out. I came across your post and got an old credit card. But I still had trouble but was finally able to get the bottom tabs released using a tiny flathead screwdriver. I could barely see any solder on the chips and I just refreshed it with the soldering iron, as I have extremely limited experience with soldering. Anyway, just plugged the clock back in and it works. By the way, your credit card tricked worked great for getting the case off the clock itself. Thank you :)

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  4. Whoohoo!! It worked for me too! Glad to have my clock back. It was pretty easy. It took me about 25 minutes. I have taken out the center console before to put in a radio and have limited soldering experience. If you are considering to try this fix yourself, it's worth a shot. If you are going to buy a soldering iron for this, get the hottest one possible. There is a coating on the board and the solder that you need to melt through.

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