Thanks to Pal.Rider photo and others input, I pulled out my overhead digi-clock from my 2001 Forester L and fixed it. I was at first surprised to see that the tiny flat rectangle shaped resistor labeled 500 was still in place with intact solders at each side. But I went ahead and scraped the solders a bit to see if any cracks were apparent, still could not see any...but a magnifying glass would have been a help, and I didnt have one. I just went ahead and fired up the soldering iron and melted fresh solder on top of the old solder joints and figured, it can't hurt. I reinstalled the clock in the car, and it has worked perfectly ever since. Who knows, maybe just the action of sliding on and off the wire harness and the fuse improved those connections and made it work. Electronics guru guy at work said it is possible for the old solder joints to look perfectly intact, but for them to be "compromised inside" and thus fooling your eye.