Mongo

Last night I made an attempt to remove the clock and shifter surround trim piece to swap in my new center console trim that has an AFR gauge. Upon removal, the clock and the rear AC switch assembly and harness pulls out with the shifter surround. Is this right? It's my first time removing the surround here. I was assuming that the vinyl surround piece comes out without the clock and AC switches installed. Are there tabs somewhere I couldn't see that release the white housing for the clock & switches from the black surround piece?

I'll pick up on the project tonight and snap some pictures of my progress, but need to know how to separate the clock housing from the black clock surround.

heinrich

Andy the rear switches and clock should IIRC loosen and stay behind. The clock and switches sit in one unit and the frame fits over the top. However, pulling them all out carefully should not harm your car.

Mongo

Mine seemed to have wanted to stay with the frame when I pulled it out. Are you also saying that the white housing should have remained in there attached to the center console rather than getting pulled out with the black surround?

hans14914

You have to pull the ***** off (towards you) and there will be two retaining bush nuts, unscrew those and it all comes apart.

BTW if you need some AFR gauge inspiration, check out what Kurt is doing here:

https://rennlist.com/forums/928-foru...ll-thread.html

Hans

heinrich

right

Mongo

The fact that I didn't unscrew those bushings is probably what kept everything secured to the black surround, including the housing. I will try unscrewing those. Hopefully it comes out.

auzivision

You gueesed it. The white plastic surround on the LCD clock and rear A/C controls is screwed into the console frame so it remains attached to the console.

Mongo

I'm about to tear into this sucker after a month of posting this. I have the ***** off, but there is some sort of bushing that is metal. It looks like a washer with slots on opposing sides that would fit some strange type screwdriver tool. Do I need some sort of special tool to remove the bushings from the ***** to take them off?

hans14914

They are just bushing nuts. use a standard screwdriver in the groove to unscrew it.

Mongo

I am bumping this thread after setting this project aside for a long time. I have to work on something on this car while it sits awaiting "CARB" legal cats.

Console trim is off and I am creating a template for mounting the rear AC controls and 2" AFR gauge.

Mongo

The trim piece is off of a 1979. I will be tossing in a basic narrowband AFR gauge as a place holder until the Innovate MTX-L is ordered. I want to Sharktune later and will need a wideband O2 sensor to do it.

I have confirmed that the OB trim piece does fit the 928 cars 85+.

Mongo

Continuing work yesterday on my lunch hour, I managed to prepare a panel out of balsa wood about as thick as the clock. I intend to replace this with a piece of hobby plastic later on, but wanted to see how things would fit so far.

There are a couple of things to note:

1) When using the OB trim piece with the three holes, the rear AC controls do line up almost perfectly. With the absence of the white clock housing, this will give you the additional play you need to center everything up.

2) The bezel the ***** since above literally fit right into the two smaller holes. It is a very tight squeeze too. Anyone tackling this project may want to use some glue IF they intend to do this modification permanently. To prevent damaging the vinyl inside, I actually used a little bit of upholstery glue to fasten the plastic to the vinyl just around the edges. This will prevent any additional play.

Before doing any gluing, you will need to push the bezels into the correct depth. They should sit 1/8"-3/16" lower than the top of the trim. The reason for this is because the factory AC switches will not have the sufficient height to connect the ***** to.



Let's move on to panel that will need to be fabricated. Take notice of the AC switches, the threaded portion that the locking washer fastens to is actually a half-moon type shape. This not only identifies which **** is the fan speed and which is the temperature control, but also helps keep the **** from spinning freely in the clock housing when trying to turn the ****.

You will want to cut out the hole to the EXACT size as the clock housing holes. Any additional tolerance and you risk a 'free spinning' **** whenever you try to turn the rear air on.

Mongo

Below is a picture of what the back of the panel looks like after the holes are drilled correctly and without the AC controls mounted. I dremeled the hole out to incoporate the AFR gauge. After installing the knobls, I did a test to see if the switches spun freely in the panel I installed them into. I can turn the switch quickly for the fan speeds on and off with no movement at the back. The temperature rheostat **** works normally as well.

Mongo

Here is what the panel looks like with everything installed. I will take the gauge out when installing it into the car since I have some wiring work to do at the back. I will be using the wiring for the clock light to illuminate the gauge.


This method for AFR gauge install is 100% reversible. If one chooses to later return to the original setup of a digital clock and rear air, they can pop the bezels back out and scrape off the upholstery glue. The original switches for the AC were not even alterred.

Mongo

And as installed, awaiting the gauge...