964 Gauge Face Replacement
by Tom Sharpes
Most of the time when you do an upgrade to your car it is on the exterior">
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964 Gauge Face Replacement by Tom Sharpes Most of the time when you do an upgrade to your car it is on the exterior, engine, or under the car, so when your driving you don’t really get to appreciate it as much as others who can see it from the outside (or hear it). Here is a project that you will be able to enjoy every time you get in your car. Replacing the gauge faces with ones of another color is a personal choice as there are some that feel this is changing the originality of the car, but it is YOUR car so do what makes YOU feel good. In my case, the combination of the Grand Prix White exterior and black interior was very nice, but it needed a little something extra to make it really contrast and bring the interior to life. In this case I did what I had done on my 74 targa, I changed the gauge faces to white ones. On the 74, I took this project on as a do it yourself one. Taking the gauges apart and changed the faces out myself. It was a difficult, but a very rewarding project. This time I decided to have North Hollywood Speedometer do them for me. Doing it once is a fun, learning project, but doing it twice is masochism. I was told by NHS that they would turn them around in two days – and they did. They came back looking great and fixed my sticky tach as well. I highly recommend them for your gauge work. I was pleasantly surprised to find that Porsche had gone to 1-piece connectors for the gauges rather than the mass of wires that were on the earlier cars. This made the whole thing a snap. Just remove the gauges and disconnect them, send the gauges off to get the faces changed and toss them back in.
Gauge Face Installation
Here are the before and after pictures of this project.
Quite a dramatic change. Especially against the white exterior of the car.
To remove the first gauge, in this case the gas gauge, I used a screwdriver that I had covered the tip with clear tape so it would not scratch the gauge during the removal.
Using the screwdriver and a small piece of foam to protect the adjacent gauge and upholstery, I loosened the gauge to start removing it from the dashboard.
Once the gauge is pried away from the panel far enough you can grasp it and pull it out of the dash. Just to be on the safe side I marked each connector with a color and keyed it to the direction it attached to the gauge.
Once you have the gas gauge out you should not have to use the screwdriver again. You can now just reach through the open gauge hole and push the next gauge out with your fingers. The tach is a little difficult to remove because of the steering wheel. You need to rotate it 180 degrees, then slip it past the steering wheel column and the gauge will come right out.
The clock has a trick to the connectors. The large connector will not come off until you disconnect the smaller black one. The smaller one is the ground connector and the soldering is weak (I broke the wire off the connector and had to re-solder it). Using a needle nose pliers to remove the metal part of the connector first will allow you to get the plastic cover off easier.
This is what your dashboard looks like when your done – YIKES ! Be sure to take your keys out so you don’t turn on the ignition by mistake. I’m not sure what effect this would have, but I didn’t want to end up with a bunch of trouble codes to get cleared.
All of the gauges ready for packaging and sending off to North Hollywood Speedometer.
I was promised I would have my gauges turned around in two days and they were! The gauges looked great and you would never know they had been apart looking at the rolled edges of the bezels. Great work. The reassembly is very easy. I did use a little trick to reinstall the gauges. I placed the rubber gaskets in the dash opening and then applied some soapy water on the inside edge as well as on the outer case of the gauge. The gauges slid right in without any problems and you have a couple of minutes to adjust them before the soapy water dries and the gauges are in tight.
Here are the pictures of the completed project. The time for removal of the gauges was about 20 minutes - and that was being extra careful. It took about half that to put them back in and fire up the car to ensure everything worked. The white hides all of the warning lights when they are not illuminated, but when they come on they are very visible. The turn signals seem to be a lot brighter as well. The gauges are very easy to read and all of the numbers and writing are done very well. The white gauges do seem to be very large compared to the black ones. These gauge faces are also available in silver and a variety of other colors. |
