My truck had a scratched up lens cluster which gave off a green blurry glow at night. It's like someone rubbed it with a Brill-O pad! I ordered a new one and my new lens cluster came in (Thanks partsguyed!) so my Dad and I tackled it last weekend. I'll try to do a thorough how-to in case anyone wants to tackle this on their own. I was very intimidated, but my Dad talked me into it and it worked out fine...both times...

Keep in mind this was done on a 2005 Lariat. Options listed in the "unplug" step may vary from yours.

1. Sit in the drivers seat and and put the gearshift lever down to 1st gear. Get your fingers in between the dash and dash cover by the headlight switch. In this pic, I've started, but you need to get the dash cover loose from the clips. Then, the only thing keeping it in place are the connections to the dash switches (4X4, headlights, heater, etc.). Be careful but firm. Work your way up from the corner, across the top of the dash, down the side by the radio and back over to the info/reset buttons.



2. Starting from the side closest to the passenger, we removed the power outlet, heater, power rear window, 4X4, info center and headlight connections. Assuming you don't have other connections, this should allow the dash cover to come free from the dash.



3. As you can see, my dash was pretty dirty, so this was a good time to clean it up.

4. Lay the dash cover down on cloth or styrofoam somewhere where it won't fall and break. Clean it if necessary.

5. Remove the 4 7mm bolts holding the dash cluser into the dash. The bolts are behind the red dots in the pic below (or somewhere close).



6. When the bolts are out, there are 2 wire clusters (1 black and 1 blue) attached at the top as well as the gear indicator unit on the bottom. Once the 2 wire clusters are off the top, tilt the gauge cluster forward and unsnap the gear indicator gently. There are 2 small gray tabs that need squeezed to get it out. The orange gear indicator seems as if it could easily be broken, so be very careful. You may need to remove the fuse panel by your left knee in order to get to the gauge indicator cable to get some slack or take up some slack.

7. At this point the cluster should come out. Sit it on a soft surface. Take a wide flat-blade screwdriver and VERY carefully wedge the 7 black tabs up off of the white snap holders. The pic below is an example of a few of them. Also, the black and blue outlets at the top are for the 2 wire clusters mentioned in Step 6.



8. With all of these black tabs lifted, the lens cover should pop right off. At this point, you can clean the gauge face with some Windex or whatever you want to. **BE CAREFUL to zero the gauges back to their zero positions. They are easily bumped. This is why I had to do this twice. We got everything back together and realized that the boost gauge wasn't put back to zero. This is also a good time to flip the white cluster over and replace any bulbs that may be out. We had to do this a third time after we got it back together and I must've bumped a bulb and had to replace it on the third time because at night, the 2000rmp - 5000rpm range on the gauge wasn't lit. Very frustrating of course!

9. Install new gauge cluster lens cover making sure all 7 tabs have snapped into place.

10. Carefully reinstall the new cluster and lens. DO NOT fasten it in with the 4 7mm bolts yet. You will want to plug the top black and blue clusters in and then, from the bottom, reinsert the gear indicator. On mine, one side snapped in and the other did not. I don't remember which side, but only ONE made the snap noise, but it was in there tight. Check the front to make sure the little orange indicator is in the right location to actually indicate the gear. You can easily get it in the wrong place.

11. With the top 2 wired clusters and the gear indicator securely in place, set the cluster in place and tighten the 4 7mm bolts to hold it in place (see Step 5 for location).

12. Take some Windex and wipe the lens cover off in case you've touched it during the reinstall.

13. At this point, before all is replaced, put the truck in park and turn the key to make sure all the gauges are zeroed and all bulbs light up by turning on your headlights. My boost gauge had gone about 300 degrees around so if I'd have been at about 30lbs of boost, the needle would've been at zero.

14. Put the dash back in the reverse order. Connect the headlight and work your way toward the passenger side. Once all connections are firmly connected, snap the dash back in and test all lights and make sure everything is working as it should be.

I hope this helps you guys who may have wanted to do something like this but were intimidated. Most of this stuff is easy, just time consuming. It always helps to have a second person, not only to help physically, but also to put your heads together to make sure things go back the way they should. Let me know if any of this needs cleared up.

 

Nice write up... Thank you