My original intent for doing this was to install a set of white gauge backgrounds, but I misplaced them and couldn't do it! Oh well, they'll turn up sometime soon, and this is really easy!

Tools needed: small & medium phillips screwdriver, medium flat blade screwdriver, cleaning rag, q-tips and rubbing alcohol.

Cluster had dirt inside, and I got tired of looking at it. First thing to do was remove cluster from truck. Easy to do, remove the upper and lower column shroud from the steering wheel, remove two top screws that hold cluster to dash, pull the bottom out as these are only held in by two clips. You'll need to tug on it a little. Remove the speedo cable by pinching the knurled spot and pulling straight out, this is a little tricky since you don't have much room back there, and the short length of the speedo cable only allows about 3/4" of play. Than remove the electrical connectors. These are all one way connections and you can't plug them in the wrong spot.

Cluster out! Ready for cleaning!

These clusters don't use a PCB board, but rather a thin mylar like backing with copper "lines" sure there is a name for it and someone will correct me. Going to take this off and clean it too! You don't need to memorize the locations of all the lamps as they are interchangeable.

Remove the back housing of the cluster from the front, fairly easy to do, there are 4 plastic tongues along the top, and 2 on the bottom. You may want to be careful if yours is brittle. The polycarbonate cover is removed the same, it is held on by plastic tongues along all four sides, the bottom two can only be reached by the flat blade screwdriver.

now to remove the mylar board. Simple, but take your time. This is only held on by the plastic guide posts as well as the pressure from the electrical connectors. Take the q-tips and soak the ends in the rubbing alcohol and clean the electrical connectors as well as the copper from the mylar board.

This was a little tricky to get off. Both top sides of the mylar board feed through the cluster to the electrical connections on the face side. You need to disconnect this, lift the mylar board from the guide posts and feed it back through the cluster.

To clean the gauge faces, you can remove the faces and clean them or leave them in place, but be careful as the needles can bend.Simply clean all the parts and assembly is reverse!
Modified by 86 720 at 10:09 PM 4/2/2010

good stuff... i added it to the DIY thread!

How do you know if your speedo cable is fully set in?

dogred wrote:How do you know if your speedo cable is fully set in?

You will hear a "click", and if you don't simply pull it back and if it comes off again, it wasn't fully pressed on.

Thanks!

when i did mine you can push the speedo cable through the firewall from under the hood to get a little more slack but not much!!

do u have any views of you clusters after you took them off because i have seen on other vehicles that there is a way to change to color of how the guages light up by simply applying a colored membrane. I really want to make mine light up yellow and would love to know if i can do this without having to disassemble completely just to find out i cant do it. I am referencing this site that changes the light film....is this possible????

http://www.4130-products.com/step/gl/index.htm

Thank you

Actully that would be really easy...the only thing is iv only used the little light covers in a Tach and they didnt change the color very much..but any ways....start at the top of this page and do everything he says down to the second pic...six screws two clips and a speedo cable and three our four plugs..after you get it all the way out flip it around and youll see like in the 2nd pic you have 9 or so little and 2 bigger Black twist off light sockets,, twist them out put your color filters on and put it all back together!!hope this helps!!! And welcome to the site!!

and i didnt look at your link untill after i posted that..... ours is quite a bit different than that cluster i dont think youll be ablle to make sumtihn maybe though....like i said there about 11 indevidual lights for different things...there all marked on the back so you know what ones your changing..heres the kind of light covers you need for our bulbs!!!

http://www.summitracing.com/search/?key ... over&dds=1

newnissanfanatic wrote:do u have any views of you clusters after you took them off because i have seen on other vehicles that there is a way to change to color of how the guages light up by simply applying a colored membrane. I really want to make mine light up yellow and would love to know if i can do this without having to disassemble completely just to find out i cant do it. I am referencing this site that changes the light film....is this possible????

http://www.4130-products.com/step/gl/index.htm

Thank you

These clusters are not like the ones in the link. There is no "film" to remove from either the speedo, fuel or temp gauges, nor the turn signals. They are actually thin "boards". However you could remove the "board" from the turn signals and put a film over those areas. These gauges do not have a dedicated bulb that lights them up. There are two 194 lamps, one on either side of the speedo cluster and one T1.5 lamp at the top between the turn signal indicators. These lamps are used to light all three clusters. The sensor, high beam, oil, battery, sea belt and brake light have dedicated lamps, but they are not film either. You can see the dedicated lamps on the picture which shows the back of the cluster with the mylar board.

. For example, if you were to remove the temp gauge face(it is actually a thin board type) and turned it over, where the H and the C as well as the white indicator lines between the two, the back side of the the gauge is opaque at those points, which allows light to pass through thus "lighting" the gauge.

^^^yep thats pretty much what i said^^^..lol but they make a little Filter i guess you could call it that slips rite onto the bulb and changes its color....iv used them in an old Tachometer i had and they worked pretty good....if i were you newnissan id get the color you wanted and start changing them out a couple at a time untill you get the ones you want yellow i dont think the caps will do much for the oil,high beam and the others like that but i would think you could get sum color change in the speedo,fuel and temp...when i did the carpet in my truck i pulled the center console out and there was a green filter on the gear indicator light so i pulled it off and now the dam thing blinds me... 86 720 if you look at the link i posted you can see the filters they have a ton of colors and for different bulb styles..