During my latest trip from California to Washington I determined that the current instruments were unacceptable. Not all of them worked and the ones that did work I had little trust in their readings. Even worse, none of the back lighting worked, so when I drove at night I had to shine a flashlight periodically to insure things were not burning up.
Removal:
The whole cluster was connected up using multi pin Amphenol plugs, so removal went pretty easy once I found the screws and unstuck the plugs
First step was to figure out how to handle the wiring. Whoever worked on this in the past went through more butt connectors than my kids go through Band-aids. Using a DYMO Rhino 5200 label printer I was able to tag each wire as I snipped it from where it terminated.
I carefully de-soldered each connection and re-attached new high quality cross-linked polyethylene insulated wire. With the Dyno labeler I could print on to 1/4″ shrink tube and slide that on the wire. I am happy with how they turned out. Now I just need to order all the new gauges and switches
Things I bought for this:
- DYMO Industrial Label Maker & Carry Case | RhinoPRO 5200 Label Maker
- Printable heat shrink tube
- High Temp GXL Cross-Link XLPE Stranded Wire, 14 AWG
- Weller WLC100 40-Watt Soldering Station
- NTE Electronics SW02-10 No-Clean Solder Wick
- SRA Rosin Paste Flux #135 in a 2 oz Jar
