Putting back the instrument cluster

Time to fix the lights and put together my dash again!

First I wanted to renew the green glasses on the indicator lights.

They were letting go a bit so they had to go...

But where do you find new glasses? I know!

I cut them out of a cheap-ass folder. Perfect for the occasion ;-)

Ready to be glued on.

Voila. Easy peasy.

Next up the more serious part. First I need to remove the old crappy printed circuit.

Not all the lights can be replaced. I bought a led kit online which replaces most lights except for warning lights. But I had to take them all out anyway. Just incase I made sure I knew where they came from. I also removed the voltage regulator (square thing at the top right).

Right in the middle are 2 larger screws that sit on threaded rods attached to the fuel meter. Unfortunately one of the rods wasn't sticking in the meter so well anymore and spun around when I tried to get the nut off. Grrrr. Now I have to remove the whole back-side etc...

After a lot of careful screwing around I managed to get it out.

There is the reason the rod was moving along with the spinning nut. The plastic around it was cracked :-(

But I glued it back on and tested it by putting a bit of voltage on it carefully so make the meter move. And it worked! Nice!

Time to start putting the cluster back together.

First I put the fuel meter back in carefully and tested it one more time to make sure it was still working fine, which it was :-)

Then I put the new printed circuit on put in the new lights and the few old ones. Looking good eh?

Then I took it to my car and put it back in. You have to fiddle a bit to get the electric connector in. Also, make sure you hear a click when putting the speedometer cable back on, otherwise it's not connected properly.

I tested the indicators and... Bingo! I got indicator lights again :-)

Finally I put back the instrument panel and my car looks nice again with working indicator lights! :-)

Taking out the instrument cluster

So, recently my car passed its bi-annual checkup (required by law in The Netherlands) without any problems. However, my turning indicators don't work anymore which is very annoying because after making a turn I can't see if my indicator is still on and thanks to the lovely sound of the 351C, I can't hear the clicking of the relay either. So I figured I'd spend a bit more time in fixing that quickly.

I'm slowly starting to realise that my life is not a car show on Discovery and that there is actually no such thing as "quickly" when it comes to doing my own repairs ;-)

So above there's a picture of the instrument panel. Behind it is the instrument cluster. Let's try to open it...

Unscrewing 4 screws to losen the panel is easy however, you do need to remove the side panel as well. Depending on how far your car door will open, this is a pain sometimes because you can't reach the screw very well.

When the panels are removed, you get to see the actual instrument cluster. This is also held in place by four screws, easily accessible.

What's not very easy is disconnecting the wiring and the speedometer cable. Not because they're so stuck but because they are difficult to reach.Also, the alternator light was not just a light screwed in to the back as all the others, but it's attached to a big cable running behind. So do not rip it out once the big connector and the speedometer cable have been disconnected because you're not done yet! Disconnect the alternator light seperately!

And then you find out the steering wheel needs to be removed to take the cluser home for the neccesary repairs...

So I screwed back the losened cluster in order to remove the wheel.

Unscrew the horn-pad from behind.

The steering wheel didn't let go. I was advised to just hit it from behind firmly but after 3 attempts I gave up because it felt wrong. It's not how I like to work so I ordered a steering wheel-puller. This made the job easy.

I also removed some trim around the steering column for better access.

And then I had a big hole in my dash... On the right side you can see the electric connector and the speedometer cable.

This is the seperately wired alternator light. I have no idea why it's wired seperately as the printed circuit has a place for a normal light fitting...

One instrument cluster removed, thank you very much.

I took the instrument cluster home to work on. Here you can see the old printed circuit. I found out that the light for the fuel gauge is simply missing... On the right you can see the hole where the alternator light goes.

The reason my indicator light wasn't working. I have ordered new parts. Now we wait...

To be continued.