Hi everyone,

I am kind of a newby when it comes to car mechanics, but last year I successfully installed a car kit and now I thought I would be ready to install a used navigation system (Blaupunkt Travelpilot E2). I need a speed sensor signal for this, and according to the service manual it's a switch inside the speedometer, on pins 15 and 16 on the white connector on the gauge cluster. I can use this to generate a nice 12V pulse wave, but I have to reach it first. I tried to remove the trim piece on the driver's side, but it seems there are some screws covered by the centre trim piece. I couldn't find a way to remove this. Does anyone have any directions on pulling the gauge cluster of a N14?

Thanks!

Should be a few screws holding the trim around the gauge cluster. They should be located up while looking at the cluster. From there you will have access to the 4 screws holding the gauge cluster in place. You will probably have a tricky time unhooking the speedo from the back of the cluster. But you should be able to get it done.

I have found those screws, and I removed them, but I wasn't able to remove the trim piece yet. It seems there are some screws in the location I have indicated in this picture. They are behind the panel, facing upward. Looks like these can only be removed after removing the trim piece directly beneath the radio.

Are you trying to take the gauge cluster out? Let me go double check to in my car, should be very similar.

Yes I am. The trim piece on the driver's side also covers the middle section, up to and including the radio.

There should be two screws, one on each side of the steering wheel up and under the outside trim piece that covers around the single vent and one to the inside by the radio panel. That should give you access to pull the gauge cluster out after you remove the two screws up by the cluster and the four screws that hold the cluster in place. All the wires hanging from the pic, isn't that where the radio goes? I'm confused to how you got the radio out then without removing the trim piece that covers around the HVAC controls, the hazard/foglamp/defrost controls. Can you not take out the two screws you circled in the pic?

I can remove anything up to the middle part. I think I really have to remove the trim piece before I can take out the screws that hold the gauge cluster. I can't reach the screws in the areas I marked, because they're upside down (behind the panel), so it seems I can only reach them after removing the trim piece covering the HVAC controls. It's easy to take out the radio, you don't have to remove any trim piece for this, the radio can be unlocked using a special key or some tiewraps.

I got quite a bit further today. I managed to remove the trim piece in the middle by removing two screws at the bottom and unsnapping the rest. This gave access to the two upside down screws that were holding the driver's side trim piece in place. After removing the dashboard dimmer I was able to remove the entire trim piece. But after removing the 4 screws of the gauge cluster, I still couldn't pull out the gauge cluster. It moved, but something was keeping it from coming out enough to reach the connectors at the back. I checked and found out what it was: the speed cable has just enough length to reach the speedometer, but it has to be disconnected from the transaxial before I will be able to pull out the gauge cluster entirely.

Yup, definately have to unhook speedo from tranny or you will only have about 1in to play with.

It was a dirty job, but it worked. The speedometer cable connection is way down on top of the transaxial, I could only just reach it, fortunately there is some room for tools to get it loose, but you just can't see a damn thing with all these cables in the way. I pulled the gauge cluster and made a connection to the yellow/green cable on the central 10-pin connector of the gauge cluster. There was also a black cable next to it, which was supposed to be the other pole of the speed pulse, but I found it was connected to the ground. I also tried to find a way to get to the dashboard lights (one of mine is broken), but I couldn't find a way to replace it, if anyone can tell me more about this it would be appreciated. Then I got to the part that turned out to be the most difficult, which was reconnecting the speedometer cable. The screw just wouldn't fit, but after half an hour I found out that there is a small extension on the cable that needs to fit into a small hole. I could just make out the location of the hole, and I tried to position the extension on the cable to match the hole. It still took several attempts, but then the cable went all the way down and I was able to screw it down. I connected the speed pulse to the 12V contact through a 10K resistor to pull the line high when there is no ground connection and it WORKS! So anyone with a Nissan Sunny who needs a speed pulse: you don't need to buy separate speed pulse generator, it's already there, you just need to pull the line high to make it usable for a nav system. According to the service manual, it's also not used by other systems (the fact that I measured no voltage on it confirms this), it only runs to the ECC, you even may be able to tap into the signal there if you don't want to pull the gauge cluster.

Good job. Gotta love it when the plan finally comes together, even after you beat your self to death trying.