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Taking my dash trim off, anything to do while it's open?

T

tdicola

NAXJA Forum User
Location
Seattle, WA
Hey all, I'm planning to take most of the dash trim apart this weekend so I can hard wire in a GPS cradle. While I have the trim out is there anything I should look at or fix? Car is a '99, automatic, 4 liter with 150k miles. I'm planning to pull out the instrument cluster to clean the contacts. Are there any other dash/instrument related gremlins to take care of too?
 
Unhook every harness you can find and clean them then put die-electric grease in it.Tighten down every nut and screw you can find.Other then that theres nothing.
 
Got any plastic squeaks and groans? Good time to put some white grease on the alignment pins and clips. Look to see if there are any rub areas, some grease there will help also.
 
gdavis said:
Got any plastic squeaks and groans? Good time to put some white grease on the alignment pins and clips. Look to see if there are any rub areas, some grease there will help also.
Click to expand...
Or you can get a peice of velvet and cut little squares and put them behind each clip to keep the squeaks to a minimum.Thats what the manufacturers are doing now.The velvet will never wear away like the grease will.
 
Not sure if yours is applicable but there was a harness-connector TSB, used to run about $8 at the dealer I think. The connector is improved and adds a bit of length to the harness to relieve stress on the connection.

TSB:

NO: 08-15-99
SUBJECT: Erratic, Intermittent Cluster Operation/Intermittent Air Bag Warning light.
DATE: May 21, 1999
 
When I had my dash apart, I hosed down every vent and dusted everything I could. PO had a hairy ass dog and that fur was everywhere. By the way, you'll be amazed at the engineering that went into the dash parts. So easy to remove. Top of dash is simply clipped on and you can have the entire thing apart in under 5 minutes.
 
VAhasnoWAVES said:
id replace the heater core and evaporator core (thats the ac component thats in the dash right?) while im in there.... no sense in doing it down the road.

but thats just me.
Click to expand...
that involves dropping the entire dash... including the plastic frame / hvac box and a bunch of other junk. WAY past what he's gonna have to do to install a GPS cradle otherwise I'd agree with you.

Get the vacuum cleaner out and attach the baseboard/crevice vacuuming tool, vacuum all the pet hair/dust/dirt/dead bugs/bits of leaves/spiders/old receipts and fast-food straw sleeves/other detritus out of the dash while you're in there.
 
rocknxj said:
When I had my dash apart, I hosed down every vent and dusted everything I could. PO had a hairy ass dog and that fur was everywhere. By the way, you'll be amazed at the engineering that went into the dash parts. So easy to remove. Top of dash is simply clipped on and you can have the entire thing apart in under 5 minutes.
Click to expand...

Dude--canine or girlfriend?
 
Thanks all for the advice. I took everything apart and wow it was a lot less trouble than I expected. It looks like the previous owner had a good quality stereo installation done because all the clip and screw holes had little stick on felt pads covering them. Anyone know where more of these can be bought? Seems like something very useful to have around when you take off random panels.
 
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