When pulling the cluster panel, does the entire plastic assembly come out? The black panel that surrounds the gauges connects to the top panel(the large pastic piece that butts up with dash). Does both peices come out together as a whole?

 

yes, they come out together. the hood is attached to the cluster.

 

yes - the entire hood & cluster has to slide backwards into the car, the top part of the inst hood has 3 or 4 tapered lugs that slide into slots in the top of the dash. it makes it a lot easier if you drop the steering column first, the toughest part is reaching up behind the cluster to release all the wiring harness connectors

 

Sometimes it's a bitch to get the clips to release. I had to summon the powers of greyskull to get mine out.

 

wish i would have read this, i fig this out too late. i put two small cracks where the front and the hood come together trying to pull it appart. this is just bad engineering. oh well most people wont notice it.

 

there was a complete walk through on how to remove gauge cluster on www.clubrx.org, apparently his site is down again...damn.

 

When I pulled mine, I did it the right way with even pressure, going slow, not twisting, etc....and I still thought it was going to break. Then it popped out and I fell back into my seat.

I put some lubricant on the connections and bent the connectors down a little and it comes in and out alittle more reasonable now.

Now I just gotta find a full set of textured panels and I'm set. I missed out on a complete set on ebay a couple weeks ago.

 

Just refinish your old ones. Thats what I did and now they look like the 94+ interiors. Its very easy to do.

R.k.