upstate bob

Has anyone attempted to modify the instrument panel to make it easy to service? I'm not concerned with keeping it original but don't want ugly either.

Adamant1971

Why? Once you have done and R&R on it it won't get opened again for a long long time.

77tony

What year ? T

davek9

That was my first thought too

And it's not all that difficult to remove, now if it were a heater core...

M. Requin

I think it's only difficult because it isn't done often enough by most to develop a routine. But there is a thread about 15 minute pod removal, and once it's out the instrument assembly itself is pretty straightforward to get into. One thing that caused me a heck of a lot of grief in the beginning was that the PO had mis-routed the cables to the pod switches. Until I found a couple of good photos here on RL I really struggled with that.

M. Requin

Ha! Adam, you're generally right, but it was different for me because I kept screwing around with the lighting, and getting my final solution - EL backlight dials - the way I wanted them. And now I need to go in again because in my latest update I re-placed some of the needles incorrectly...

Adamant1971

Doh!

But I bet you will be faster this time around.

hacker-pschorr

+1

I was shocked how easy it was to take off the pod, disassemble the gauge cluster and fix the gear. That arrangement lasted 37 years so in theory I shouldn't have to remove it for another 30+.

Weissach

I think people forget how old these cars are. An 87 S4 is 30 years old. If it's made it this far, trust me---- I don't see much improvement by modifying

Speedtoys

Is once every 30 years too often?

upstate bob

Sorry, I omitted it is a 79. Yeah, the old girl is a bit dim at night. I rarely drive anything after dark but I would like to have it right. Just have to have at it and gitterdone, eh?

karl ruiter

There are some tricks that make it pretty easy. The biggest one is that you don't have to pull the switches out of the pod. Pull the wheel, and the turn signal switches, pull the under covers and the two main fastners. Now you can just tease the gauge cluster out of the grommets where it mounts to the pod and flop the pod forward leaving the cluster in place. Likewise when re-installing you put the cluster in place and connect all the wires. Now flip the pod back into position, tease the cluster into the grommets and install hardware. Easy.

The Forgotten On

Is the rheostat under the pod corroded? That has caused more than a few people to have dim lights.

Petza914

I believe you can connect together the two wires that go to the rheostat, bypassing it completely, which will give you full brightness for troubleshooting purposes and let you know if you have a rheostat issue or something else.

vanster

I replaced the bolts with allen bolts so I could get a long thin allen wrench into it. Really helps
Next for me is replacing my dash....woo whoo