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how do you disassemble dashboard instruments?


bigblondewolf
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I'm trying to get rid of the yellowish light of my dashboard. I managed to get the whole instrument cluster out and replaced bulbs with white LED strips. So far so good, but now it lights in a lemon yellow color. I wanted to scrub off the back of the dials, the instruments themselves come off easily with a couple of screws from the back, there are also two black screws on the front that hold the dial to the instrument, but I can't get the pointers off. Are they glued or it takes more force than I used? I hate prying, I always break something...

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I will try and help but I've not taken apart a Civic instrument cluster, I've only done Mazda and Toyota in the past. This is at your risk!

Generally, the needles just pull off. You have to be really careful and pull straight up but they do come. I have heard of people using a fork as a lever but I've never tried it. Have a look on youtube for videos, there are some there for other cars and again, the ones I looked at are just pull off. There was also a video from a guy working on an EG civic but the quality is very low, but it is a Honda.

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Be careful to note where the needle goes as on a lot of cars the shaft for the needle is not keyed - so it can be put back on wrong. In the past I have hooked the dash back up without the needles, powered it back up and turned it off to let the needles reset to the zero positions, then re-attached the needles. I can't say that this will definitely work on a Honda but it has for me on other cars.

Let us know how you get on.

HTH

Dave

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I'm not gonna be much of a help but I've heard many saying not to remove the needles on a Honda dashboard. And if you do the chance that they are going to work fine after that is small. I wanted to buy glowing needles but no one was willing to install them even the shop that made them :(

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I have removed the needles on both my Civic and Rover 400 (similar instrument cluster) without any problems so that I could paint them.

In both cases I just pulled the needle off with my fingers. It takes a bit of effort but they eventually come off. I surrounded the speedo dial with masking tape first just in case anything slipped. I think the fork idea would also work.

Beware of the little pointer at the zero speed point. I managed to snap one by being a bit heavy handed but also managed to repace it with a sewing pin and a bit of black paint.

I like the idea of refitting the instruments without the needle and then powering up for a short while to reset the speedo at zero. Getting the needle to read correctly was the only problem.

My solution was to partially refit the needle, remove the clear plastic lens cover, temporary refit the instrument cluster then take the car for a drive. I used my sat nav which has speed readings on to compare the accuracy of the needle. I then repositioned the needle as necessary then tested it again. Sounds a bit fiddly but it was easy in the end.

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