'97 Cluster R&R, no tach, now have I one

[mike2004tct]

Originally Posted by s10blazerman4x4

so any adjustments yet?

Took the glass cover off without removing the unit Sunday, with the truck running I repositioned the Volt meter and Tach needle. Now idles at 750rpm. Speedometer seems to be correct, haven't been pulled over for speeding yet.15 minute job.

[Rick1488]

Originally Posted by mike2004tct

Direct replacement, no wire mods required. Wiring already exists in factory harness.

Sweet! I'm gonna put a tach in my 96... If all is well the only thing I'll have to change is the mile reader? Can I just take the one from mine and put it the tach one I buy?

[mike2004tct]

Originally Posted by Rick1488

Sweet! I'm gonna put a tach in my 96... If all is well the only thing I'll have to change is the mile reader? Can I just take the one from mine and put it the tach one I buy?

You sure can. See post #7 on the first page of this thread. It explains how to swap the odometer.

[Rmbodie]

I understand the desire to retain the factory look . I looked for a factory unit in junk yards . But ended up going rough and redneck by mounting gauges and switches all over the dash . Rob

[s10blazerman4x4]

Lol yes rough and redneck. I got a guy trying to get me a gauge pillar and the way the mechanic keeps going i keep needing more and more.

[Eslhockey92g]

I have a new cluster coming to me in the mail now. I the odometer is only gonna be about 9,000 miles more than what i'm at now. I'm not sure if thats a big enough deal to try to hasle with but if i do, what did you use to pry the Neddles off, I'm sure there easy to snap. And i'm guessing you just pop the needles of and pull the black background off and its pretty self explanitory from there to swap the odometers from there

Edit;
I ended up swapping the head units between the 2 clusters today, so I now have my original miles showing.
Took me about 1.5 hours to dis-assemble both units and get everything back together. IHad to remove the plastic/glass cover, then pry out the gauge units, remove a circuit board from the back, then exchange the heads. No wheel turning required.
Got the tach needle off by about 100rpm, and the volt meter is off by about 1.5volts, but I save readjusments for another day.[/quote]

[mike2004tct]

Originally Posted by Eslhockey92g

I have a new cluster coming to me in the mail now. I the odometer is only gonna be about 9,000 miles more than what i'm at now. I'm not sure if thats a big enough deal to try to hasle with but if i do, what did you use to pry the Neddles off, I'm sure there easy to snap. And i'm guessing you just pop the needles of and pull the black background off and its pretty self explanitory from there to swap the odometers from there

You don't need to remove the needles, or the face cover either. But if you do, the needles just pull straight off. I replaced the needles on the donor unit because they were faded, while my original needles still look new.
Here's what you do. Remove the glass cover from the front of the cluster (4 screws). Next, the clear plastic cover that the gauges are mounted to is push-fitted into the plastic housing of the cluster. I evenly pried around all the edges of this plastic cover to get it out. You'll notice that all the gauges (4) have round pins that compression fit into sockets on the cluster housing. Once you get this clear plastic cover out, you remove the circuit board from the back of the gauges (2 small screws), then you can remove the odometer (3 screws) Very simple proceedure.
If you want to PM me before you do the swap, I can e-mail a bunch of cell phone pictures showing you exactly how to do it.

[s10blazerman4x4]

Or since its only like 9K off just wait to you get in that neighborhood and from now to then practice taking off the cluster so you know how to do it.

[Eslhockey92g]

Yea that doesn't sound to bad, I'll have the cluster this week, and while i wait for the time to do it i'm ordering LEDS to put in that as well I just did it this weekend w/ mine now just to see what happens, and it looks awesome I'm gonna try to put a pic up on the HOW_TO the rilth put up.

s-10 blazerman- haha Yea I have had the cluster out a few times already but this weekend i did the led conversion and it didn't work and was able to rip it out and but it back in, in about 5 min including putting the large dash trim back on. but noble idea ither way

[s10blazerman4x4]

Lol yeh cuz my friend saw this the other day and he goes Shawn thats our next project and im like , "You know for us this wont be easy because nothing is with your Sonoma lol. Then he goes im doing the LEDS too." LOL

[that1guy]

These previous posts have pretty much answered all my questions about what i'm wanting to do. I didn't realize it was that easy, otherwise i would have done it a while ago. I do have a problem though. last summer i fried speed calibrator circuit in the computer. and ended up driving around for about 2 weeks waiting on a payday so i could go in to have it fixed. before i even did that, i replaced the gauge cluster with a difference of like some 25K or something. I dont remember exactly. is there a way of figuring out what the true milage really is by hooking up a scan tool to the obdII system or something, or am i flat out of luck cuz i dont have the original cluster anymore? not that its a big deal to me, but i'd atleast like it to read a little more true than be completely off.

[ZL1power69]

this thread is almost a year old. please refrain from posting in old threads. start a new thread with a link to this one if need be.