How to remove the needles from SECA tach and speedo?

Hi folks,

I am attempting to make new gauge backgrounds for my SECA. I have the instrument cluster apart, and would like to remove the gauge faces. How do the needles come off of these gauges?

Thanks,
Paul

P.S. I also converted the gauge lighting over to LED using 4-LED colored bulbs and 5-LED white ones from SuperBright LED's. All very nice except for the green Neutral, which is actually blinding!

 

Take some pics once you have them back together! I was thinking about doing the same thing with LEDs..

as far as the needles go.. I had to grab the needle shaft with some needle-nose pliers (the long, angled ones) that I ground down flat so they fit under the needle. that keeps the shaft from moving so you can gently twist the needle off.

it helps to mark the default positions so it's easier to put them back on.

 

What I found that worked good to get mine off was to take a metal dinner fork and pry them off with that. That is if they are the same as an xj650. Just be careful when they do come off as they might go flying like a bullet. They are VERY fragile so I would be as careful as you can with them. Hopefully that will do the trick for you. Like steromind said show some pics to let us see how they turn out. I was thinking of doing the same thing down the road. Good luck!

 

Thanks for the suggestions guys.

The fork idea sounded like a good one. I tried that on the tach needle and applied quite a lot of force, to no effect. I don't know if the needles have just fused themselves on a bit over the years or if they're actually glued on, but I didn't feel comfortable pulling any harder on them than I had.

Also, I ended up needing to laser print the label to redo the warning center, as inkjet wasn't dark enough. Since I don't have a color laser, and Kinko's couldn't figure out how to print at 600dpi with their software, I would have been a bit of pain to print new gauge faces anyway.

So, this evening I should have the cluster back together, still with the original tach and speedo background, but with the new warning center bezel, new paint on the needles, and the LEDs. I'll post some pictures from there.

Cheers,
Paul

 

Paul I took mine apart using the previous techniques
BUT
the pain was removing the two screws holding the face down.

are you able to remove these?

 

The screws are no problem at all. One, in fact, had loosened up on its own and I had to tighten it back down.

I really felt, though, that the amount of force I was applying to try to pull the tach needle off was getting into the area that could damage the motor bearings in the tach itself.

 

My tach needle broke last weekend...just seemed to disapear. No idea how/why... More reason to upgrade to digital (that and the fact my trip counter isn't working...).

 

Well, I'm stuck a bit now...

The good: I polished up the main lens and the lenses for the indicator lights with Brasso, and cleaned them up, and they came out nice. The 5-LED back lights work great.

The OK: The replacement bezel I made for the warning center looks better than the old melted one, but not as good a new one. The colored warning lights are too bright but still reasonable.

The bad: My computer mod (switching a 3A rectifier in in place of the .47Ohm resistor for the tail light sense circuit) doesn't seem to have worked, and I don't understand why.

That last part was neccessary because I had changed to LED tail lights. I measured the current draw of an original 1157 low beam. It pulled .58A. So, two of them should draw 1.16A and drop .58V. I measured the voltage drop between the blue and blue/white wires at the computer connector, and it's .68V. I can't believe the computer is that sensitive that it would be complaining about the tail light for drawing 17% "extra" current, but I also can't think of any other reason why it should still be compaining about the TAIL.

I think I'll try installing one and maybe two 1157's again, and see whether that makes a difference. At the least it might give me an idea of the solution.

FYI, if you want to retrofit to LED's, use the (SuperBright LEDS) 5-LED white's in place of 194's for backlighting, but don't use the 4-LED coloreds, except maybe for the turn indicators. For the Neutral light and High Beam I actually had to put blue painters tape over the bulbs to dim them to a more bearable brightness.

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Update: With one 1157 and one LED, the TAIL signal is not triggered. At this point, the voltage drop across the rectifier is .78V. With the two LED's it's .69V while running, so the the threshold for the computer is somewhere between .69V and .78V. Thing is, I can't think of a good way to add .1V to the voltage drop the way it's set up currently....


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Further update: Mystery solved. These Yamaha engineers were really pretty clever. Besides checking the current draw for the low power taillight filiments, the computer also pulses the high power stoplight filiments during its initial systems check. This is measured through a second resistor (.12Ohms) which sits right next to the .47Ohm one on the corner of the PC board. I don't have a 4A rectifier handy for that circuit, but I'll pick one up tomorrow, and that should do it.

 

This is great news for getting brighter backlights for the instruments. Can you give us the source for these LED's. I would like to try them on my bikes. I have a cluster apart right now on my woork bench. Trying to figure out how to make it brighter. I think from what I see here it is possible to do with out making major mods. Let us know Thanks

 

http://www.superbrightleds.com/specs/bulb_specs.htm

I went with the WLED-WW5. They are a little tricky to get into the hole because of the LED's sticking out the side, but they do fit. The warm white is plenty bright, consumes much less power than incandescents, and is a very natural color.

Cheers,
Paul

 

OK, here's the picture with the LED's, repainted needles, and the new warning center bezel. The gauge background plastics are a bit aged, which is why they're yellowish compared to the warning center.



I ended up putting blue masking tape over the green and blue LED's, and regular masking tape over the others. This reduced the glare a bit and also diffused the light so it looks more like the original lighting.

Unfortunately, the Schottky rectifier I installed for the tail light sensor resistor doesn't drop quite enough voltage. It now passes the initial checks, but fails the first time I hold the brake for a second or two. I think I'll have to pull the Shottky out and install a barrel diode instead. Not quite in the mood for pulling the cluster apart again right now, though. :?