Cleaning up Instrument Cluster
&
Converting Orange Z Dash to White

You may have already guessed that the worst part of this job is removing the instrument cluster...well, that's tough, but really I ran into quite a bit more than just that. After you've done this you'll know how bad this leaky speedometer can really be.

First, follow directions as given in your Haynes manual as to how to remove the instrument cluster. You MUST remove the speedometer cable from the transmission and you will see that its too your benefit anyways. You'll want to clean it out as best you can to avoid any "leftover" fluid from seeping up the cable. If you have not yet replaced the Speedometer Cable Pinion Gear Seal you need to do this to prevent further leakage into the speedocable. The seal cracks or shrinks over time allowing tranny fluid to leak through and then the cable acts as a pump (Archimedes water screw in action) and pumps fluid up to the speedo.

Once you have the instrument cluster out, clean the inside of the dash as best you can with a couple paper towels and then focus on the instrument cluster. Follow these directions carefully!!

First of all, you won't have this leaky speedometer cable problem if you are blessed with a speed sensor. The speed sensor is located near the cruise control on Z's '87-'89. I'm not sure if the '86's have them, but I'm sure the '84's and '85's do not!!! Our curse!!! I don't know what descrepancies there are in the construction of the '84-'86 instrument clusters, so please don't assume that your problems will be the same as mine in working with the instrument cluster.

The first step is to wipe off the outside of the cluster as best you can. If your clear plastic cover is still in good shape (no oil, ArmorAll stains, scracthes), you may want to remove it as soon as you can to protect it. Put it in a safe place. You may even want to remove it while the cluster is still in the car (after removing necessary trim peices)...because while you're trying to pull it out and undo the harnesses and speedocable, you may scratch the surface. Anyways...clean up the exterior of the cluster.

After removing oil on the outside, proceed to dismantle the cluster. You will remove a few screws that keep the black cover connected to the white peice of the cluster (which houses all the gauges...I am assuming you have the clear cover removed by now). Now you must deal with the face of the gauges...it IS NOT necessary to unscrew the gauges from the back of the unit, though you may do so to remove all the grease/oil that is inside or on the gauges themselves. To remove the face of the gauges, you need to remove the speedometer needle and the tach needle...this is where you need to be most careful. Use standard pliers and carefully pull the needles off. Do not attemp to remove the needles with your fingers and especially not by prying by the needle parts themselves. They are very brittle. I broke my tach needle because at the time I didn't know any better how to take them off. This is very bad. Nissan does not sell the needles alone. You have to buy the whole instrument cluster at a mean $300 or find a junkyard with a cluster ($60 or so) for new needles...they really should sell the needle alone. Anyways, take the pliers and pull up gently. My '84's needles had little clips inside the round cap that clip onto the masts that turn while in operation. I don't know how other might be.

Since I broke a needle I had to find new ones. I have always wanted to convert to a white typed face...like on '87-'89's. So, I found an '87 cluster from a junkyard and bought it for $60!!! Ouch, heh. Well I didn't know how ouch until I brought it home. The needle and face, though they looked the same, are quite different. The Speedo/Tach needles don't just clip on like on the '84...they have stems that clip directly onto the mast of the gauges. On the '84 the masts of the gauges have plastic on the top that the needle clips clip on to. Hard to understand I know, and hard to explain...sorry. The temp gauge and fuel needle are similar and work well without much of a problem.

To remove the original face, remove the black cover by removing the 5 screws holding it onto the white housing. Then remove the needles as explained, and then remove the 4 screws (2 on either side) that hold the face to the Speedometer and Tach. Now remove the face. If you are going to re-use the same face and just want to clean the original, get some DAWN dish soap, wet the surface of the face and then rub a thin film of DAWN all over. Wash it off with mild water until all the soap is off. If there are still oil stains then repeat the DAWN process. Make sure all the DAWN is washed of and then dry with a soft paper towel or air hose. There are little colored films that, when the lights turn on, they glow there color or ensignia (such as coolant light, battery light, etc)...you need to remove these little films from the back of the face and clean them also. Also clean the back side of the face. Lots of oil hangs up there. You want to make sure you get ALL the oil out...it WILL find its way back to the face if you don't get it all. You also need to clean the white housing throughly. I didn't want to remove the odometer, etc, but I probably should've. Lots of oil hangs up in the white housing. GET IT ALL!!! Use Q-Tips, water, soap or whatever you need to...make sure you dry everything thoroughly if you use water/soap. Make sure all the soap is removed. To clean the face of the fuel gauge and water temp gauge you need to remove the screws and needles as with the tach and speedo. Be even more careful with these needles (refering to '84Z...later model Z's I might consider not even removing the needles...they are on very very tight and they are even harder to put back on w/out breaking the stems).

Once you have throughly cleaned all the oil out of the whole cluster you can peice it back together. If needles were removed I warn you that you may have to recalibrate them!!! The speedo seems fine on mine, but the tach is off by 300-400 RPM (don't know what to do about this). The fuel gauge is way off. Once the 1/4 tanks gauge shows 1/4 I'll remove the main gauge and put it on 1/4 as my way of re-calibrating. The temp gauge is off by about 20 degrees so I will heat up the car and pull it off and reset it to where it used to be...which is just under the middle mark.

I converted to white faced gauges and this was hell!!! Maybe not even worth it...unless I can get all the gauges reading right and such. I had to spend $60 getting this done and it was hell getting it done. I had to drill different holes for the reset trip odometers and the tach screws on the '84 and '87 are slightly offset...I had to drill new hole in the '87 face to get the screws to line up. I also ran into problems when reinserting the screws...they would force the plastic face to bow...I had to do a little extra drilling to release the stress the slightly offset screwholes created on the face.

This is all quite confusing I know...I will re-read it a couple times and try to clarify what I've said. This just isn't a very fluid explanation.