I installed custom gauge faces and did the LED mod. I put the gauge cluster back in and tested it before I started putting the dash back together, because it would be a huge pita to tear it apart again. Well, the idiot lights work, but the needles don't seem to. Granted, I did not try to drive it with it all tore apart, but the RPM needle should work along with the gas and temp. Any clues as to what could be wrong? If the LED's have any contact with the needle pins at all would it stop them from moving? (It was a tight fit, there may be contact between the pin and the LED's I installed) Any help is appreciated.

 

Probably the usual suspects, you pushed the needles on too far.

 

There's alot of things that CAN cause the needles to stop functioning.

1. as redzman said, pushing the needles too far in. It will cause an obvious binding between the needle and the gauges.
2. insufficient clearance between the sides of the LEDs and the needles
3. insufficient clearance between the leads on the back of the LEDs and the white plastic Needle spring retainer
4. insufficient clearance between the white plastic needle spring retainer and the spring caused by pressing on the retainer
5. screws in back not making proper contact
6. foreign objects

I usually grease the needle mount, pop the needle in place, then check to make sure it will rotate freely all the way across it's range of movement on the post. If it hangs anywhere, you can try to bend it and wiggle it so that it moves better. If it cannot be bent or wiggled, remove the assembly and use a router bit on a dremmel on the LEDs to remove just a little bit of plastic to free up the circle more. You can also try to mold the leads into the plastic more to keep them from bumping on the spring retainer.

 

Ok, I'll ckeck into it. I didn't want to try and move the needle manually for fear I would break something. I'll let you guys know what I find out.

 

Yea it sucks when that happens, ive done it before..actually somehow lost my speedometer needle in the process.

But as said before check to see if the needle rotates freely. In my case when I did mine one of the led leads was just nicking the needle(didn't melt it into the plastic well enough) so just keep in mind that it has to completely rotate freely, any slight contact as small as it can be can hold the needle back.

 

^^*trying to picture that*....

How did you manage to get the leads of the LED brushing agains the needle? The leads should be on the led's bottom back. The needle is on the led's top front. It seems like there would be a LED between the LEDs leads and the needle.

Also, i found white lithium is a good grease for this project. Just lube the base of the needle before you stick it back in, so that intermittant/light contact between the LED and the needle is at least smooth and unnoticible.

 

Correction it wasn't the needle, it was that little white disk thing underneath the plastic that moves with the speedometer, right in between the Odometer and Tripometer....Yeah after reading my post i started to think about that too...But I know it was definetly a lead that wasn't melted in to the plastic enough..

 

^^ Yeah, i call that the spring retainer. it keeps the spring from popping upwards. that thing always catches the bottom of a LED or something. It's always been my #1 problem. I hate that sucker. I wonder if everything would function without it, but then again, it does protect the LEDs from the metal spring. It's usually the cause of the needle stopping durring the stroke somewhere. Like between 30-50 MPH it won't register, then all the sudden the needle pops up to the correct reading, and the same on the way back down. That's usually the spring retainer.