notny41

1986 944 Turbo:

Ok, I received my new odometer gear in the mail as my odo quit working a little while ago. Edredas has a fantastic video on how to replace this here. I used that video to replace mine. So nice to have a working odometer again! It is just mindblowing how mushy and crumbly these gears get after time. Below I have the two gears side-by-side. I had to piece back together my original because it just breaks apart as you are working around it.


20-21 new gear in white


Since I already had the gauge cluster out and my dash lights have been very dim, I decided to try refreshing the reflective prism lenses for the three dash lights as well. I ended up taking each of the three prism pieces off (basically used an exacto knive to cut the melted rivets holding each down and prying the mounting points with a screwdriver). Once I had them off, I used non-acetone finger nail polish remover to take off what was left of the original reflective paint. My first attempt was to paint one of the prisms with Rustoleum Mirror Effect spraypaint.


After the first coat of spray paint - obviously this was not the best solution

It really didn't work very well and I ended up taking that off with the nail polish. What I ended up going with was some aluminum heater duct tape from Menards. The finish on the outside of that tape is highly reflective and the aluminum under the clear adhesive of the tape was also surprisingly reflective. I would have expected that to be more of a dull side - like you have with a roll of aluminum foil. This turned out to be an improvement, but not a major improvement. I'm glad I did it but time will tell if it was really worth doing. Forgot to take pics of the finished product.


Next I moved on to the dash bulbs. I pulled out all of the tiny bulbs in the black bulb housings and tested them all. They all test out good with the ohmmeter. I am a little concerned with how many vacant bulb holes there are on the back of the gauges. Does anyone know if these are supposed to be empty or should I try to source some to fill those holes all up?





As I was cleaning everything up, I noticed that there is a little prism for light to shine thru to light up the little defroster symbol by the vents. Upon further investigation, there is a tiny bulb mounted to the back of the dash structure where this trim/vent piece fastens to. The little light doesn't come on when I activate the defroster though so I thought the bulb was maybe burnt out, but it lights up when I put it on a 9v battery. So I'm wondering what to look into to try to get that to work again???



This defroster symbol is actually meant to light up.



Here's the top of the vent area which has the prism for the defroster light to shine thru.



This is the mini defroster light bulb



Here is the socket that the mini defroster light goes into. I have the socket pulled out from its retaining clip just behind it.


If anyone has any ideas on what to start looking at to get this defroster bulb to light up, I'd love to hear your thoughts.

mytrplseven

As a creative answer to my Anemic dash lighting I decided to use LED strip lights in the UV spectrum. There's a small channel across the outer cover of the gauge cluster that just fits the LED's. I epoxied the strip into the channel and put a piece of blue painters tape over the top because the LED's were too intense. Then I drilled a 1/4 inch hole at the driver's side end of the housing for the wire on the LED's to go through. I attached the wires via a quick disconnect to a headlight power source and then reinstalled the gauge cluster. Below is a picture of how it all came out. The UV band of the LED lights acts like "blue light" and causes the dial needles to really pop. Also a 1" piece of electric tape over the bottom of the clear glass blanks the reflection of the LED's in the windshield.

notny41

I remember seeing your post on a different thread. I really like how yours turned out but I wanted to give this a try first.

notny41

Ok, a couple of updates on this.

1. The dash lights are a dramatic improvement from what they were before I refreshed them. Still not great in twilight times, but when it is dark out there is no problem reading the gauges now. I would definitely recommend the aluminum heating duct tape - but you need to make sure you take off all of the old reflective finish so the prism/lenses are all clear. Then put the tape on. I had to cut a few sections of tape and fit them together. Very happy with this fix.

2. The defroster light does not come on when you put the defroster on. It comes on when the lights are turned on. I'm not sure what the purpose of the lighted defroster symbol is, unless it is to indicate that if you slide the vent slider all the way up, you are effectively turning the blower to the defrost vents. I guess that must be why it is there. Bizzarre in my opionion... LOL

Chapman951

lol. Yes that is a bizarre one. I repaired my “vent light” a month ago. I kindof prefer it to stay off honestly. At night it’s really bright. It shouldn’t light up IMO

notny41

I was thinking the same thing - it is really bright. Could use to be tamed down a bit.