Dial Guide

1. Drop the steering wheel as low as it will go or remove it all together to make life a lot easier.

2. The plastic cover that goes in front of the console window over the top of the steering wheel boss is first to come off, couple of screws underneath it then jiggle the cover off.

3. Unscrew the 2 screws under the heater control panel.

4. Under the ignition there is a little plastic cover that hides another 2 screws - take them out.

5. In the arch at the top of the cluster there is another 2 screws

6. This is the point I got a bit stuck, the whole dash surround looks like it should come off at this point, when you pull it out a bit you’ll see 2 plug connectors on the right hand side, undo these. On the left hand side the panel where the heater controls are has 3 plugs behind it plus a blue coloured pipe/cable that I could not figure out how to release (ANYBODY???)

7. To get round this I sussed out after fook loads of swearing and a shredded hand that you could unscrew the heater control panel from the rear (4 screws and an arse to get to) I used a mini socket with a screwdriver head to get these undone.

8. Once that piece is separated, the dash surround comes out easy enough.

9. You can then unscrew the 4 screws that hold in the clear plastic window. Theres a strip of plastic that pops off the bottom of this.

10. Remove the window and the actual clock surround just pop off.

11. At this point you should have clear access to the clocks themselves, I left them attached and followed Mooks guide below. However I did NOT take the clocks out of the dash, didn’t really see the need. I’ve added little pointers to Mooks guide below with bits I found to help.

Mook's bit:

1) Take the car out for a run getting it up to running temp and fill up to the brim with fuel. (mine was half full with fuel but warm)
2) Remove trim and remove whole dial cluster from the car. ( I left mine attached)
3) Once removed, remove the clear plastic front panel to gain access to the needles.
4) Gently lift the speedo and tacho needles over the rest pegs so they drop down.
5) Plug the cluster back into car and switch ignition on. After a moment you'll see all the needles move to a set 'position' - speedo and tacho will sit just below the 0 mark, temp will come up to running temp mark, fuel will be at the top and the turbo gauge should move up to 0. Make a note of all the positions at this stage. (I actually marked where the needles were with pencil on the original dials… don’t need them now anyway eh!)
6) Switch off ignition and remove from car again. (again mine stayed attached all the way through)
7) Remove black dial surround gaining full access to the gauges.
8) With a pair of teaspoons, gently lever off the needles - don't be afraid, the ST185 needles pop off pretty easily (DEFINATLY use the spoons trick easy to remove like this… don’t want broken needles now do we!)
9) Remove old faces and apply new ones, swapping the rest pegs over too. Might need a bad of blue to secure them properly in the new faces. ( I used needle nosed pliers to pull the needles out of the original dials, popped them into the Mook ones and secured with a tiny dab of superglue)
10) Put the black surround back on.
11) Plug the cluster in the car again and switch ignition on, after a moment all the needle pins will move to the same position you marked earlier (temp might be down a touch depending on how long you've taken to swap the faces) …(I used my old dials as a ref for this with the pencil marks I’d scribbled on there earlier)
12) Pop the needles gently back on in the position marked earlier - if you've gone for the speedo/tacho needles to bottom design, place the needles the same distance to the right of the 0 mark as noted before.
13) Once on, lift the tacho/speedo back over the rest pegs so they come to rest on the 0 mark.
14) Once one, fire her up and go for a spin to check everything in the right place. If something isn't quite right, just pop needle off and replace (with ignition switched on) to get just right.
15) Once happy, pop the needles on a bit more firmly, put the cluster back together and replace all the trim.

Job done

Hope this helps, anyone who wants more info giz a shout.

Kev

Note:

Jap import cars with climate control have fully electronic controls on the heater buttons. There is simply three electrical plugs to unclip from the rear which then allow you to remove the surround - noticeably easier than the above on a UK car.