I didn't pull the needles at all. I desoldered the gauges from the board.
2002 Cavalier 2200 5spd
Hey man can you do a write up on how to do that exactly. I want to do it but don't know where to start with the desoldering. If you can email me on matthew.basham@rainier.navy.mil before april 1st and after contact me at mbasham@gmail.com going to be leaveing the ship soon so won't have my navy email to much longer.
Disclaimer:
Dey see me Trollin' Dey hatin' for trollin dey trying to catch me ridin dirty.
Where did u buy red lights, I have been trying to get them here in Ontario, Canada and no luck yet? Please give me the number again as well (#194)?
thanks.s
I got the LED's from RadioShack which wasn't a good idea since I ended up paying through the nose. If you can, order from a place like electronic goldmine. The red LEDs I got in RadioShack's assorted LED pack (276-1622) and the blue LEDs are 3.7v 20mA 2600mcd (276-316). I'll add more details soon.
2002 Cavalier 2200 5spd
SolidSnake, that cluster looks awesome. Question, can you repair a 2000 + sunfire cluster if the needles and shafts were out of it. I made the fatal mistake of removing these to install my white face, and now I'm up the creek. Do I bother with it, do you know how to fix it, or should i chalk it up to a bad learning experience and start over?
Gotta keep on livin', L-I-V-I-N
Quote:
SolidSnake, that cluster looks awesome. Question, can you repair a 2000 + sunfire cluster if the needles and shafts were out of it. I made the fatal mistake of removing these to install my white face, and now I'm up the creek. Do I bother with it, do you know how to fix it, or should i chalk it up to a bad learning experience and start over?
I think your gauge motors are toast, but the board should still be good. I don't think you can get the gauge motors by themselves, so you'll probably have to buy a whole new cluster. Is the white face an overlay? If so, couldn't you just point all the needles at 10:00 and slip the overlay under the needles?
2002 Cavalier 2200 5spd
TOO late for that. I did not realize that the pointers actually seperated from the stems, and I pulled the stems. I spoke with someone at Blackcat Custom, and he said if I wanted to try reseating the needles inthe cluster,i might hit upon the magic point at which they will reengage the motors, but if the motors are toast like you're saying, then it is pointless. If I plug in the cluster, and hear the gears turning though,does that mean the motors are toast? I think I'm gonna hit up the pick a part this weekend and see if I can snatch another cluster. Thanks for your help.
Gotta keep on livin', L-I-V-I-N
Shifted wrote:Nicely done...
Did you end up pulling any of the shafts out of the motor when you pulled the needles?
ive pulled the needles and put em back on in extra set of gauges i have, several times with no problems
Looks like my 1st set turned out..
then they came out brighter, i didn't like the hot spots...
looks good tho
I suppose you could reinsert the gauges to the zero positions, but I don't think they'll be the same after that. I don't know exactly how much of the motor you've pulled out, I just noticed a lot of the guys here warn about removing the needles from our clusters so I went the desoldering route instead. It's a lot more tedious, but also a lot safer.
2002 Cavalier 2200 5spd
how does one go about desoldering?
if you want to do one for me ill pay you...shoot me a pm with time/price, i provice the cluster
My Other Ride
RIP Saint...Semper Fi.
Each gauge motor is held on the board by four pins. After you heat up the pins and remove the solder (by either a wick or a vacuum) the gauges will come off the circuit board. Even more tedious is getting the gauges back on the board because you can only manipulate them by holding the gauge needle while you hold the board with the other hand. You have to line up all four holes perfectly before the gauge will drop back in. It's absolutely necessary to straighten the pins perfectly because if one pin does not fall in, the gauge will not seat itself on the board.
Firefighter... I'm in the process of sourcing some LEDs for much cheaper than RadioShack sells them. When I get them I'm going to take apart my cluster again and try a multicolor gauge mod. I'm thinking about sticking with blue for the speedo and tach, but I want to use other colors for the temp and fuel gauges. I'm going to try using yellow, green and red for the low, normal and high ranges of the temp gauge respectively and red, yellow and green for the fuel gauge from low to high. I think I'm going to try and mount the LEDs to the back of the overlay instead of the circuit board for more even light distribution. Right now, I don't think the results are good enough so that it's worth your time and money shipping the cluster, but wait a bit and I'll see what I can do.
2002 Cavalier 2200 5spd
