Dan in Pasadena

Recently picked up some soft polishing wheels and compound for plastic and did my front turn signal lenses last night. There was a definite haze or film on the interior and the bulb itself. Wiping that off and polishing the outside made them look new...well, except for the starburst on one from a rock hit.

Tried to get my instrument cluster out but ran out of time. Got all the screws out but seems I need to take the steering wheel off to be able to see how to take off the harness plugs on the backside. Didn't want to risk damaging one of those plugs by forcing anything. Your advice?

Also, I've heard North Hollywood Speedo does all sorts of changes to our instruments. The one I might be interested in is fitting chrome rings around the instruments..I think they come off 928 instruments. Anyone have a picture of this look?

944_S_TYPE

Try ebay for the trim rings. There are a few on there all the time. Yes they do look nice.

Dan in Pasadena

Can you put them on yourself?
I was looking at the cluster and it almost looks like I could pry off the clear front plastic...but what if I crack it!!?? I'm screwed then, huh?

Or do you get the instruments out from the back side? Also, this is a good time for me to ask the stupid question that has been asked a million times before..but I didn't pay attention to the answer.

What's the simplest, best way to improve the brightness of the cluster lights? Something about silver paint, or silver tape on reflectors? I remember someone was doing LED upgrades, but isn't that a major PITA?!

washington951

dan,
my front plastic cover came right off from the front. i put my V1 remote display in there and thats how i did it. removed the black, plastic surround (including the center A/C vent) by taking out the screws, tilting it a bit and sliding it out towards the passenger side. no wheel removal necessary. just GO SLOW and be gentle. then the cover comes right off. on mine, anyway - BE CAREFUL!!! yours MAY be different...(disclaimer - i'd feel really bad if my directions resulted in a broken plastic cover...yikes!)

Dan in Pasadena

Brian,
I got the plastic surrround off without a hitch. I started to pry off the clear but it didn'twant to come off easily. Some spots on the edge were more tightly adhering than others. So I stopped. Maybe if I used a flat blde and could get better access...again, by removing the whole cluster. Do you know what 944_S_Type is referring to about the chorme rings? Can they be easily installed?

Zero10

I'm a little confused. Are we talking about removing the clear sort of lens assembly frm the front of the instruments?
It is held on by 8-10 screws from the back.
If you meant the black piece between the gauges, I can't recall how exactly it came out, but it was really easy.

The LED's I think you are referring to are either my set or perry 951's set.
His entails removal and replacement of the reflector assembly, eliminating the need for resurfacing the reflectors, but requires some minor wiring (from what I understood, perhaps it has been changed). I have heard nothing but good things about his kit.

My kit is a straight replacement of the factory bulbs. It does still require resurfacing the reflector, but it can also be reversed at any time, and the factory bulbs can be re-installed.

All 3 plugs can be disconnected with the wheel in place, but it is a very difficult reach.
Just remember that the little tabs push outward on both sides, and if you are working where you can't see, push one half-way out, the other side all the way out, then return to the first one. if you push one all the way with the other completely latched, I am worried they may break.

So, even with my gorilla-sized hands, I got mine off, but it took me far longer than it would have to remove the steering wheel, so now I remove the wheel.
I have heard with the factory wheel, the instrument cluster can be removed with the steering wheel installed.

z3bra

What is the status on your bulb replacements Zero10? Haven't seen the subject come up much for a month or two. I just refinished the optics using that aluminum tape for HVAC ducting and am getting good lighting now. (Better even with the dimmer all the way down now than it was before with the dimmer all the way up). I was thinking about switching over to Red LED based lighting for the main cluster. Wouldn't mind doing all the backlighting for the switches and climate control etc in red LED's since at least some of them are LED's to begin with but that's lower on my list of stuff to do.

Dan in Pasadena

I'll try to answer your questions paragraph-by-paragrpah.

Yes, I'm talking about the large clear lenses that covers the whole front of the instrument cluster. Admittedly, I was rushing and "screws from the back" may not have registered with me while I was looking at it. But I didn't see any. What I saw was that it is bonded to the instrument cluster. I started to pry it off and it wanted to pop off but several locations were tightly adhering, I was runnig out of light and decided not to press on for fear of cracking this big piece of plastic.

I'm not sure what you are referring to by the "black piece between the gauges"? I'm sure if I could get the cluster out of the dash and put it on my bench with some light (and my reading glasses - Doh!!) I'd easily be able to see how to disassemble it and improve the stock lighting...as best it CAN be improved?

Last, I am interested in your "kit". But if all you are doing is replacing stock lights with higher wattage lights, is there a heat damage potential? How do you suggest resurfacing the reflector? I've heard everything from "chrome " spray paint to aluminum foil! I was thinking of that chrome self adhesive tape. But never having seen the reflector I have no idea if this would work or is a stupid idea! Advice? Costs? Hassle factor?

P.S. I'm waiting for a 930S steering wheel now so I will be taking mine off. That's the time I should do all this stuff.

Dan in Pasadena

Hah....Just posted and then read Z3Bra's comments about using the HVAC tape. That's exactly the stuff I am talking about in my prior response. So it works good, huh? Great...and cheap too.

How to install the LED's? Do you need to solder or is there another way to make them work? Any issue with either heat (I doubt it) or too great a draw of power to the cluster?

z3bra

Edit: Just for 2Tight: "Excuse me while I whip this out."

Dan,

To get the cluster out here's the rundown.

First take off your steering wheel (unless you have an airbag and then you gotta make the call, can't remember if 87 NA's have bags or not offhand).

Then, there's 3 screws in the top of the big swooping piece that includes the center vents. The 3 screws are in the top part above the gauges themselves pointing up. Take them out. Next there are 2 screws by the odometer reset button back behind the "grille" one above, one below the button itself. Next there is 1 screw in the rightmost section of the piece to the right of the 2 center vents. Take that out. Lastly there's 2 screws that go into the bottom of the part by the gauges. They come up from by the steering column, one on each side of it. take those out and that's all the screws on the plastic trim piece. Carefully remove it. If it doesn't come out gently make sure you don't have any extra or missed screws. It comes out pretty easy.

To take the gauge pod itself out (by gauge pod I mean the whole assembly with the Tach/Speedo/temp/gas/oil/voltage gauges along with the clear lens, and the plastic piece the gauges are part of with the flexible PCB on it. The whole shebang) there should be 4 screws holding it in. Two on each end. The heads of those screws will be pointing right at you and they have black coated washers on them. When you have those 4 out gently pull the gauge pod out of the dash. There are three electrical plugs on it, one on the left and two on the right. Undo the left one as Zero10 says in his above post. then you can pivot the pod's left end outward more and get to the other two connectors. Don't bend the wires too much as it's easy to tell which plug goes where based on the shape they've taken on. One of the plugs runs vertically the other horizontally. If you feel unsure about it for putting them back on just put a tag on them with tape or something like that.

That's it to get the pod out.

To separate the clear plastic cover/front half of the gauge pod from the back half which has the actual gauges in it, there's 8 or so phillips screws around the perimeter holding the two pieces together. They have hex shaped heads on mine so they're pretty easy to distinguish.

After they're out the front and back half pull apart. Just be careful and don't mess up your needles once you have the back half off. That's all there is to taking that off.

Ok on to the reflectors. On the bottom of the gauge pod when you have it out you'll see three triangular shaped pieces of plastic that will be anywhere from clear to a bubbly looking gray metallic paint color. Those are the culprits. The less shiny silver they appear the worse they work.

You can buy a few kits to replace the reflectors with metalized mylar, some people have used aluminum foil. That works, but it just didn't seem to me like it was going to hold up well and maintain contact with the plastic surface over time so basically after a while it would start to not light up again or be spotty looking. Someone had suggested the adhesive metal tape as an option. I happened to have some around the house so I figure what the heck, no matter how bad it works it still has got to be better than what was left of the original reflective paint. Having used it, it definitely works great.

Ok there's two ways to do the optics. You can leave them on the pod, or take them off. The problem with leaving them on is that there's a second black plastic piece covering the end by where the bulb shines onto the plastic. The kits I've seen don't expect you to take this piece off and since you're not fixing that part where the light shines in it's still going to leave the repair partially incomplete. I opted to take the optic pieces and the black partial covers off completely to fix them. I think it was a better choice.

The optics are held on by plastic pins that the ends have been melted on to act as a rivet of sorts. You can either file them off or heat up an exacto knife blade with a torch or stove and cut the melted head part off. I opted for the hot knife but either way should work fine. Once you do that they should lift off the pins but you may need to gently pry them off by putting a screwdriver between the main housing for the gauges and the "ears" that the melted plastic pins went through. Doesn't take much force to separate the pieces, but be careful not to break the optic piece while doing this part. Once you have the optic pieces off, you can clean the old reflective paint off with acetone. I was hesitant at first thinking it would melt or craze the plastic but it most definitely did not. Since you've got the stuff to repolish them, just use acetone on a paper towl and clean off the old stuff. It comes off pretty easy so not to worry. When they're clean then polish the whole bottom side including the 45 degree angle on the narrow end and the part up past the 90 degree bend on the wide end. Basically there's a limited surface on the top part that was up against the gauge pod that is frosted. Just polish all the parts of the optic pieces that were already glass smooth and leave the frosted pieces alone. The narrow sides are also a surface to resilver so polish them too. I just used the McGuiers plastic cleaner and polish in the blue and white bottles but anything along those lines should be fine. After polishing and wiping off the haze try not to touch the polished edges so you don't put a big fingerprint on there or something.

After trying a couple different ways, the fastest way I found was to cut off 4 inches or so of the metal tape, remove the backing, and start from the wide end of the optic pieces. Line the edge up with the edge of the tape. (the common edge between the frosted part and the smooth part that more or less points straight up as the piece would be installed in the car.) Stick that to the tape, then carefully fold the tape over so that it will cover the big flat bottom piece. The tape isn't wide enough to cover in one piece so it won't go all the way to the narrow end. There's a curved depression in the middle of this piece too to help project the light wider. That's really the only tricky part to do. You want to slowly carefully roll the tape onto the optic piece to minimize bubbles between the tape and the optic piece. Use your fingers to smooth it down evenly. You probably will get a few small creases in the curved section but just smooth them out as best you can. If you get bubbles in there poke them with an exacto knife tip to help let the air out and then smooth it down. When you have the flat surface covered and the bubbles gone etc, then you want to take the exacto at about a 45 degree angle along the corner of the edge to cut it off so that it's only covering the one surface with that particular piece of tape. I tried bending it over to do the sides with the same piece but it didn't turn out as well and I ended up redoing it after.

Once that piece of tape is cut flush on the edges, cut off another 3 inch piece and repeat the process to cover the rest of the bottom surface. Line the edge of the new piece up and slightly overlap the edge of the first piece you stuck on. It does leave a slight line in the reflective thing but it's not enough to make a big difference. When this piece is smoothed down again cut the edges flush. Repeat using smaller pieces for the thin edges of the optic. The tape is pretty forgiving, if you goof up a piece it comes off with a little effort but pretty easily. Just use common sense to cover the bottom and two thin sides with the metal tape where the paint was before. Just get it on as smooth as possible and you should be fine.

I found you can't really test the stuff too well without putting it back in the gauge cluster and using the real lights (shining a flashlight in there doesn't do the trick very well) so I just winged it and it turned out fine.

When you're done with the optic pieces just put them back in like they were. I used some epoxy to stick the ears back on since there wasn't enough plastic pin to melt again, You're on your own there too obviously epoxy isn't going to come off easily so make sure you've got them how you want them before you bond them back on. Do the same with the little black cover pieces that cover the narrow end of the optic pieces.

That's basically it. It sounds more complicated than it is though, once you get the pod out and look at the pieces you should have an idea what I'm talking about. Total cost other than time was probably the $3.50 the roll of metal tape cost and I already had that and the epoxy anyway so it was basically a freebie. It's not a perfect mirrored finish, but it works well enough that unless you had a brand new piece to compare it against I doubt the lighting would seem a whole lot less bright. Hopefully it will hold up long term but I don't see why it won't. Worst case the tape's easy enough to redo if it starts to get bad. In retrospect you could probably leave the black plastic end covers off the optics and then the fact that you epoxy the optics back in won't matter anyway if you have to replace the tape in the future.

Ok I'm done typing for a few.

z3bra

Dan, if you don't want to read the complete how-to, the hvac tape works great, it's a bit time consuming putting it on smoothly, but that's the only downside I can see thusfar.

Dirt cheap fix and it'll probably last longer than the original did by a long ways. I'd definitely use it over aluminum foil, keeping the foil stuck on there has got to be a royal PITA. Plus the tape has a plastic layer too for the adhesive and is a tad more resilient than pure metal foil would be anyway.

Dan in Pasadena

Z3BRA - First, applause for the typing effort! Geez!

Seriously, thanks for writing this up. I am printing it out to keep at hand when I get my steering wheel, the tape and a couple of hours to do it right without rushing. I can tell your write up is right on target because I followed it word-for-word until you got to the point where I stopped. I'm sure if I have it to read as I am doing it, it will make perfect sense.

What do you recommend about going with LED's or some such? I tend to stay with stock or at least something that was original to Porsche, hence my 930 steering wheel and 16" PD's instead of Momo and replica's. Anyway, any ideas on the LED's?

KuHL 951

z3bra,
What are you a court reporter? Excellent impromptu write-up; this should be archived for sure. Reminds me of that line in Blazing Saddles where the Sheriff says "Let me just whip this out". I'm doing gauge faces and dash light upgrade on the 86 using the larger 3-watt 194 bulbs. The aluminum HVAC tape worked well on my 83. The only difference was I used Mothers Metal Polish on the tape prior to application for a near mirror-like finish; not sure if it's any brighter than straight tape but it does provide some degree of protection against the inevitable oxidation. I could hardly drive the 83 at night it was so bad.

Steve

z3bra

Nah I'm a sysadmin who happens to be bored at work a good deal of the time. Time just flies by when I get going on one of those writeups.

I couldn't polish the tape because of the adhesive since it wouldn't have been sticky on that side anymore if I put polish on it. If I could have made it work somehow I definitely would have done it. The way it's setup on the late dashes, the reflective side has to go toward the clear plastic to keep the light "inside the tube" until it gets to the other end where it projects out onto the gauges. Same concept as fiber optics essentially.

Dan in Pasadena

Any more word from anyone on the LED upgrade?

Steve, what are you doing to your gauge faces? I have toyed with doing something, but not sure what? I wouldn't want too "modern". I do like the old Porsche gauges (early 911 or 356?) with the greenish writing. But that would probably look out of place on our cars. What do you think?