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swapping gauge faces (speedo)

scase86

NAXJA Forum User
hey guys I had what may seem like a wierd question. I have 2 gauge clusters (the old style and the new sport style) One cluster (the old style) came with only a speedo and a fuel gauge with the idiot lights, and obviously the new sport style have the full gauges. my question is this...since both the speedometers seem to have the same mechanical innards, can I take the face off the new sport style gauge and put it onto my old speedometer? I know it can be done, but Im wondering if the speedometer will read accuratly. the only reason I would like to do this is because If its possible, I can retain my exact mileage and have the new gauge face. anyway, I know it will work but im worried about speed reading accuracy. any thoughts?
 
My thought is that you'll probably destroy the speedo if you pull the needle off the change the faces. Plus -- your cluster with idiot lights doesn't have a trip odometer, and the sport cluster does. I'd suggest looking into exchanging just the odometer section between the two -- that would allow you to retain your correct mileage, but avoid any problems from trying to remove the needle.
 
removing the needle is easy, there are no problems there. also, the only way to exchange odo's is to remove the gauge face. I know everything will swap, im just looking to see if it will be accurate...or if the 2 speedos used different internals (they look identical though)
 
Eagle, the speedo needle on my 94 cluster is a friction fit, it just pulls straight out. The real issue is getting it put back in the right spot, it's not keyed.
 
You can pull off the entire speedometer assembly from theoriginal one and put it in the newer dashboard. There are only 2 screws holding the speedometer assembly to the cluster.

It should screw into the newer cluster with the same two screws.

If your original speedometer assembly doesn't have the trip odometer on it, you can swap out the curved plastic protective cover on it, so the cluster with the full guages has the old speedo assembly and old cover on it.

It will work perfectly fine. That way you won't have to take off any needles, swap the odometer, or try to roll back (or forward) the newer odometer to match the original.

That swap only takes about a minute to do and it is clean and easy. I would recommend doing it that way, before disecting the new and original speedometer assemblies.
 
One additional consideration is that the 84 thru 87-1/2 used a speedo cable with a metal connector at the speedo head, held in place with a mechanical clamp. The 87-1/2 thru 90 used a different speedo head and cable, with a plastic squeeze clamp to attach the cable to the speedo head.
 
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