[How to] Remove gauge cluster and repair faulty tach

[Corey]

Removed my rev counter today. This is what I found. New caps from digikey are on their way. I'm also replacing the bulbs in the cluster and hvac while I have it apart.

26 year old revcounter with 157K km on the clock.

Note the damaged capacitor on the right is missing the same markings as the undamaged one on the left. I don't see any branding, specs or polarity markings on it. The only thing they have in common with each other are the blue wrap and the orange 904E marking (not sure what that indicates).

I'm going to install the new capacitors using Nubkin's photo as a reference for the polarity since one of my caps has no markings.

[yyonline]

The triangle logo on the one capacitor is a very old Panasonic logo. I also see the marking KG which is a discontinued series of Panasonic capacitors.

904E is a date/lot code. Older Panasonic caps used red lettering for the date codes. I'm not quite sure how to decipher that as it doesn't seem to follow the same system that modern Panasonic capacitors use.

[Corey]

Replaced both capacitors this evening, went for a test drive, seems to be working properly again.

I managed to replace them without removing the gauge dial/needle - just need to be careful not to get oily fingers on the gauge face because it will leave marks which can be tough to clean off.

Thank you Nubkins for the great writeup and to yyonline for the digikey link for the proper capacitors.

[TheNubkins]

So glad to hear the repair worked out for you! And what a good idea keeping the gauge face in place! lol. Nicely done!

[Sifu]

This thread needs to be stickied.

[Brad_91]

Thanks for the write up!

I just swapped out my whole tachometer dial with a functioning one instead of messing with the capacitors in the original. I can attempt to fix my spare cluster now as a project..

Would have taken a lot longer to pull the cluster out the first time without this easy step by step!

[CMS-GT4]

Thanks for doing this writeup, it seemed to fix my issue. I was able to do the new capacitors without taking off the needle and face, but it was a pretty tight working condition.

[shadow_coupe]

Hopefully this helps someone out there.

Another shoutout to TheNubkins for making this write up, flawless instructions and thorough pics. Making this comment to show it's still a relevant issue and that the search function indeed works ha.

[gt4me123]

Great how to guide. Been recommending this for years when people have mentioned that their tachos have died. Agree with others that separating the dial from mechanism isn’t really a necessary step and cuts out a lot of extra hassle