So today my Euro Cluster and My new valve for the Headlamp washers came in.
When I looked at the new cluster it had a scratch on the front plastic so i switched plastics from my old one to my euro one.
I painted my previous cluster's needles dark red and used chrome rings, i didn't like it. So i used a red sharpie and this was much easier than painting them. and it was bright red not dark red so it had the M look. to it. I took a Q-tip to it and dusted it off a bit also.
There is a couple of slight differences in the back of the two clusters, the main difference being that the green box thing is missing on the euro cluster. I have 1 wire that plugs into the green box on my US cluster. I have no idea what it is or what it does. I left it out when i connected my euro cluster. and there are slight other differences i'll let you spot for yourself.
The service board in my old cluster had the leaky Ni-Cad batteries and it had leaked all over the SI board and was totally inoperable. I pulled the euro cluster's SI board out and was pleasantly surprised! Brand spanking new board with Lithium batteries!
When I cleaned up the cluster and the plastic screen i reached into my new "Detailing Drawer" (i just wanted to show it off :D)
I still need to rollback the Odometer on my Euro cluster to match the miles on my previous cluster. I didn't do it today because I was in a race against daylight. I don't know exactly how to roll it back without breaking anything so hopefully some searching will help.
Here are my two clusters...
So I go back to my car with everything pulled out...
put the cluster in and turn on all the lights i can and am VERY happy to see it functioning correctly. INCLUDING THE SERVICE BOARD! It is so crazy to have a working service board for an early model. I don't know exactly how the SI board is supposed to light up but some searching will help. But everything lit up correctly (no more slapping the dash to get the backlights on)
If you will notice with my cluster, it displays in miles per hour, however for the econometer, it is kilometers per gallon. This was kind of odd to me.
I examined the gas gauge needle to see it has been crimped or squished (it is hard to see from my pic because it is a bit blurry but you can see it barely)
This means that the previous owner has taken the cluster apart. Which means that this cluster could have been a euro cluster that originally displays in MPH for the few states over there using MPH, and the guy may have just put a KPG gauge face on the econometer. The reason I believe this is for two reasons.
My original cluster showed the tach speed wrong. It redlined at about 3000 RPM (i know the sound of my engine), and the econometer would not work correctly. this is why i bought the euro cluster. my cluster would never mal-function until i started taking it out and i pulled the needles off to paint them. This is most likely what the previous owner has done to it. This cluster does the same as my old cluster. the tach misreads and so does the econometer. This leads me to believe it is faulty wiring. I have heard when this happens it is a loose ground or something.
Anyways, a weird thing I had with the econometer was that the needle would display how it does with the US cluster in. When I would release off of the petal It would display me getting 0KPG, but when i floored it, it would display 40+KPG. Very weird.
So the cluster project is in progress, but not finished.
The new valve was a short and easy project. I just took out the old valve and put the new one in.
The valve on the drivers side barely leaks, so i will order another new valve in the next few days. The passenger side now successfully sprays through the nozzle onto the headlamp. The driver's side nozzles are aimed correctly (supposed to hit in the center of the headlamp) and the passenger's side still needs to be aimed.
Here are the videos:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H_rrgkp4UQk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SCAb17uVp5s
My headlight's aren't on because my connections were shitty and i wasn't going to re-do them in the dark so I will do it tomorrow. all that happened were the connectors fell out. But the headlamps were on to activate them. If you look hard, you will see the headlamp motors spinning perfectly as they should. also, you can see that the headlamp chrome rings with the stoppers aren't on the headlamps because i have them disassembled and am cleaning the and am going to have them chrome dipped locally because they are peeling paint all over the place. My new wiper arms ship out tomorrow and should be here in 2-3 days. Once the new wiper arms are one the HCS project is complete! (Unless you count intensive wash feature as part of the HCS) I will eventually wire in intensive wash, but the Euro Bumpers is a bigger priority. The side chrome will be shipped out tomorrow also.
So If anybody has any ideas on solving the cluster problems, please tell me!
When I looked at the new cluster it had a scratch on the front plastic so i switched plastics from my old one to my euro one.
I painted my previous cluster's needles dark red and used chrome rings, i didn't like it. So i used a red sharpie and this was much easier than painting them. and it was bright red not dark red so it had the M look. to it. I took a Q-tip to it and dusted it off a bit also.
There is a couple of slight differences in the back of the two clusters, the main difference being that the green box thing is missing on the euro cluster. I have 1 wire that plugs into the green box on my US cluster. I have no idea what it is or what it does. I left it out when i connected my euro cluster. and there are slight other differences i'll let you spot for yourself.
The service board in my old cluster had the leaky Ni-Cad batteries and it had leaked all over the SI board and was totally inoperable. I pulled the euro cluster's SI board out and was pleasantly surprised! Brand spanking new board with Lithium batteries!
When I cleaned up the cluster and the plastic screen i reached into my new "Detailing Drawer" (i just wanted to show it off :D)
I still need to rollback the Odometer on my Euro cluster to match the miles on my previous cluster. I didn't do it today because I was in a race against daylight. I don't know exactly how to roll it back without breaking anything so hopefully some searching will help.
Here are my two clusters...
So I go back to my car with everything pulled out...
put the cluster in and turn on all the lights i can and am VERY happy to see it functioning correctly. INCLUDING THE SERVICE BOARD! It is so crazy to have a working service board for an early model. I don't know exactly how the SI board is supposed to light up but some searching will help. But everything lit up correctly (no more slapping the dash to get the backlights on)
If you will notice with my cluster, it displays in miles per hour, however for the econometer, it is kilometers per gallon. This was kind of odd to me.
I examined the gas gauge needle to see it has been crimped or squished (it is hard to see from my pic because it is a bit blurry but you can see it barely)
This means that the previous owner has taken the cluster apart. Which means that this cluster could have been a euro cluster that originally displays in MPH for the few states over there using MPH, and the guy may have just put a KPG gauge face on the econometer. The reason I believe this is for two reasons.
My original cluster showed the tach speed wrong. It redlined at about 3000 RPM (i know the sound of my engine), and the econometer would not work correctly. this is why i bought the euro cluster. my cluster would never mal-function until i started taking it out and i pulled the needles off to paint them. This is most likely what the previous owner has done to it. This cluster does the same as my old cluster. the tach misreads and so does the econometer. This leads me to believe it is faulty wiring. I have heard when this happens it is a loose ground or something.
Anyways, a weird thing I had with the econometer was that the needle would display how it does with the US cluster in. When I would release off of the petal It would display me getting 0KPG, but when i floored it, it would display 40+KPG. Very weird.
So the cluster project is in progress, but not finished.
The new valve was a short and easy project. I just took out the old valve and put the new one in.
The valve on the drivers side barely leaks, so i will order another new valve in the next few days. The passenger side now successfully sprays through the nozzle onto the headlamp. The driver's side nozzles are aimed correctly (supposed to hit in the center of the headlamp) and the passenger's side still needs to be aimed.
Here are the videos:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H_rrgkp4UQk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SCAb17uVp5s
My headlight's aren't on because my connections were shitty and i wasn't going to re-do them in the dark so I will do it tomorrow. all that happened were the connectors fell out. But the headlamps were on to activate them. If you look hard, you will see the headlamp motors spinning perfectly as they should. also, you can see that the headlamp chrome rings with the stoppers aren't on the headlamps because i have them disassembled and am cleaning the and am going to have them chrome dipped locally because they are peeling paint all over the place. My new wiper arms ship out tomorrow and should be here in 2-3 days. Once the new wiper arms are one the HCS project is complete! (Unless you count intensive wash feature as part of the HCS) I will eventually wire in intensive wash, but the Euro Bumpers is a bigger priority. The side chrome will be shipped out tomorrow also.
So If anybody has any ideas on solving the cluster problems, please tell me!
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