HowTo: Remove gauge cluster

[mhopton]

I've got the "occasional gauges don't work" gremlin where hitting a bump will cause some combination of the dash gauges to intermittently stop working; however, the airbag light will always come on. Typically a few minutes, or hours later, another bump will cause them to come back on for awhile.

I've done a few searches and the consensus is oxidation on the self-docking plugs that needs to be cleaned and dilectric grease added. No problem, I can handle that.

However, I don't want to go ripping into the dash w/out some info on getting into the gauges. Does anyone have a "how to", or info on how to remove the gauges only?

This is a 98 Cherokee Sport, 2wd w/ 130k!

Thanks,
Mike:)

[Bridgman]

my girlfriends 1998 classic has the same problem and we are going to tear it up some time soon. we went to a junk yard and tore up a 98 dash there so we wouldn't mess up hers.
you have to take apart the dash, i believe is the only way, i could write you a page on how to do it and where all the screws are but you really need pics ill see what i can do unless someone already has some.

[RichP]

Grab the center bezel around the radio on the bottom, pull it straight out, spring loaded pins hold it in.
Once thats out it's just a matter of removing a few screws to remove the trim piece around the dash. Then as I remember it's 6 bolt screws to remove the cluster itself. Took me an hour and a half when I did mine, that included 30 min of waiting after I disconnected the battery and let the airbag ckts drain..
You do have to remove the steering wheel cover behind the steering wheel, makes it easier to slide the cluster out..

[5bucks]

I had the "occasional guages don't work" problem on my wife's '98 Chrysler minivan. Same description as your problem with the airbag light coming on when it happened. This thing plagued me for years. My first thought was loose connection. So I take off the bezels surrounding the instrument cluster to check the connection. Everything looks fine. So I disconnect and reconnector the modular plug and put everything back together. Start her up and the instrument cluster starts working again. 3 days later it goes out again. Just for grins with the engine running I take the bezels off disconect and reconnect the instrument cluster. As soon as I did the reconnect the cluster came back to life. I must have done this 50 times over a 2 year period. After a few times I could get the bezels off and do the disco/reco and have it all put back together in about 5 minutes. Then one day the simple diso/reco thing stopped working. She'd drive with no guages for a few weeks at a time then out of the blue they'd start working again for a few weeks. This went on for for another year. With increasing periods between working and non-working guages. I researched the hell out of this thing. Found a few people with the same problem. They'd all gone to the stealerships for new $500 body control modules only to have the cluster fail again a few weeks later. Finally I decided to just buy an entire new intrument cluster. On ebay I found a guy in California who lists hundreds of clusters. They are all listed with no reserve and $29.95 for s/h. I won mine for a bid of a penny. Guessing the guy only expects to make the s/h when he sells these. Put my ebay cluster in a year and a half ago and it's been solid ever since.

All that said I'm not saying this is your problem. But, if you get to the cluster you may want to try just unplugging and plugging it back in. I'm not sure exactly how the jeep is set-up as far as the airbag sensors (the mini-vans were in the steering column) but I always did my disco/reco with the engine running. If you do this and the cluster starts working you'll probably think (just like I did) that the connections were bad and reseating the connector fixed the problem. As I found out, you will probably be wrong. Something is bad within the cluster itself. Modular connectors are not very prone to bad connections through oxidation. There are an awful lot of them in a vehicle...many in locations prone to extremes of moisture, heat and cold. Unless your in the habit of cleaning your interior with a garden hose, up under the dash is one of the most dry, stable and clean places in a vehicle.

[johnnyc]

I had the same problem with the idiot light cluster on my 98. Occasionally, the speedo, odometer, and fuel gauge would stop working. And the airbag light would go on. Then a few moments later, everything would work again and the airbag light would turn off.

I swapped in a full gauge cluster and everything works great, all the time. So you could try cleaning the connections, or try to find a new cluster.

[mhopton]

Thanks for the responses and the "how to".

This was quite possibly the easiest gauge removal I've ever dealt with. Everything popped apart with ease and the only issue I had was popping the dash cover over the knob for the headlight switch; a little dawn on my finger cured that.

I cleaned the corrosion, wasn't much really, spread the connectors some to maybe tighten them when it went back together and covered the male/female connectors in dilectric grease.

Everything went back together smooth and was done in 30 minutes total. Hopefully this will solve the problem of intermittent gauges.

thanks!

Mike