[James92Scort]

Ok so I´m almost home from my trip to Columbus last saturday and I noticed that I can´t see 5000 through redline on my tach.
The light burnt out on the right side of the dash.
1) How do I go about gettin that apart to get to the bulb? So I have some replacement bulbs for em.
2) Do I need to take the steering wheel apart? I´m sure I can get it apart, as I have a Hayne´s manual and have read how-tos from other peoples questions on here. (by the way...its a 92 so it has no airbag)
3) I found some star screws under the black part of the dash, do I need those keys, or should I not worry about that part of the dash?
4) Where can I get those spiffy white face gauges that says "Escort" on it that I saw a few of you guys had up a few months ago? I have a printer here (well I still gotta hook it up and steal some paper from my dads office), I´d like to get them for nothing. Yes, I know...I´m cheap. but I just spent all my cash on a stereo system and a new engine block. :-]

5) Whilest I´m replacing the bulbs and putting in gauges I´m going to be painting my dash. Two tone Red on the two grey parts and white for the black. I´m going to go ahead and take my dash apart along with it, so any help doing that will be greatly appreciated.
5a) Do I need to primer that plastic first? or just wash, rinse and dry?
6) Also, when I have my dashboard apart, how hard do you think it´ll be to take out the vents and cover that up with some fiberglass or something like that?
I don´t use the head vents (except the side window defoggers) and I´d like to get rid of them. make my interior slightly "cleaner looking".

 

[Juggernaut]

i just washed/rinsed/dried my plastic pieces and then primered before i spray painted them, then i clear coated. awesome so far! preimer bought in a huge can is pretty cheap, and it was meant to have the color applied about 2 mins after putting the primer on, so it didn´t take long

 

[siragan]

james-

getting to the gauge faces is pretty easy, just unscrew the shroud for the steering column, take off the black "dash section" from the drivers side, and then take out the screws on the cluster. Then, take out the speedo cable (you gotta reach around in back of the cluster by sticking your hand up behind it by lying down on the floor near the pedals.) Then you need to unclip the connector and your cluster will come out. Then you can replace the bulbs and go wild with gauges.

I photoshopped some much much nicer looking gauges in a red/blue scehemer that are much cleaner and nicer to look at then the gauge faces you´ll find online. I also fixed some alignment errors and I´m currently having them printed out at a local printshop and I can get you a set if you want. They´ll probably be around 8 bucks or so, plus a stamp, but they´re also reverse-printed black, so you dont get really really bright white blobs when the backlights are on, and they´re of course on only the highest quality, acid-free semigloss photopaper, at none other than 600dpi.

 

[Beaverboy]

James-

Go ahead and replace all of the bulbs while you´re in there. If one´s gone the others may be soon to follow, and you don´t want to turn this dashboard remove-replace into a full time hobby.

 

[nukewater]

ok everyone makes this -removing dash peice- sound like a peice of cake.. for me, believe me, it was the task from hell, i tried.. "pulling" it out, i tried "prying" it out, i tried talking softly to it, it wouldnt get off the steering column w/o breaking anything (this is in 95 EGT btw) so finally, 2 1/2 hours later, i check deeper into the haynes manual to take the god damned steering column off all together, simple task, IF, you have a steering wheel puller, and IF, you knew cars had DUCT tape on them (this baffled me beyond belief), so anyways theres a peice of crap metal thing on the steering column bout 1/4 wide that the dash thing had a hard time getting over, i Filled a little whole in the peice so next time it would be easier..

3 days later.. BAM! interior down the drain.. crap.. oh well, live and learn.

 

[James92Scort]

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19-03-2003 at 01:14, Beaverboy wrote:
James-

Go ahead and replace all of the bulbs while you´re in there. If one´s gone the others may be soon to follow, and you don´t want to turn this dashboard remove-replace into a full time hobby.

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I am. how many bulbs are back there? i got 4 bulbs in my backseat right now. ;-)

 

[siragan]

A lot of bulbs... I dunno how many, but one for each idiot light, and then probably like 5 more or something for the gauge faces. I am thinking of replacing them with white LEDs, because the stock incandescent bulbs make white gauge faces look kinda yellow/amber.

And nuke- taking the GAUGE CLUSTER out isn´t too difficult... the ENTIRE DASH, however, I have been told, is like wrestling with the devil. I´ve never done it, but blade told me that he had a lot of "fun" doing it

 

[birddog]

James, I did the exact same thing to my 94 gt. take the plastic of the steering wheel column then go after the dash piece. Its not that bad and if I am not mistaken, there are 7 bulbs. Might have been 6 can´t remember for sure. if the column is still a problem, lie down on the floor and look at the bottom of the steering colum where it meets the dash. In that area are 4 bolts take em out and you now have the play in the steering column you need. Just be careful and don´t break anything. If you worry about the idiot lights then replace those as well. make sure the darn speedo cable is on before you put it all back together. I recommend testing first. I put mine on jack stands, fired it up put er in gear and found out that I hadn´t put the cable on all the way. best of luck.

 

[fixitmattman]

If you only want to change the bulbs, depending on your body size you don´t need much. The last time that one of mine burnt out, I was able to stick my hand behind the dash, and pull it out. This required a lot of feeling aroud, and a few ´oh shits´ when you drop the bulb and its holder. To acomplish this, you need to be like me, a tall skinny S.O.B. :-o

To pull the guage cluster, you will need to remove the plastic bezel around the steering column, then remove the 4 bolts that hold the steering column onto the bracket. Remove the 5 bolts that hold the "Black dash piece" in place. By now it should be loose, but not free. This is where the Haynes manual and I disagree. The only thing holding the black dash piece in place is the wires for the mirror controls, and rear defroster. Haynes simply suggests removing the swithches. I had no such luck with any removal method. I don´t recomment trying to pry them out either, it just makes the plastic look like hell, all scratched up and gouged. Even with this piece off it was a pain to remove the switches. To my surprise one was even screwed in place:-o To avoid this, just remove the wiring harness from the swithches. It´s a lot easier. To remove the cluster remember this, no matter what Haynes says DO NOT PULL ON IT! It´s very thin and cheap plastic that breaks very easily, that´s experience talking too. It is much easier to track the speedo cable from the tranny, then push it from inside the engine bay. The rest should be self explanitory. Just make sure the speedo cable engages at the tranny end and the cluster end before reassembly.

Hope that helps.

Matt

 

[siragan]

also, dont run the car without all the cables plugged into the cluster. according to a guy on the EDRT forum, it will "fry up your alternator". I dunno why that is, but I never ran mine without the cluster plugged in and I never had problems.