Getting the cluster out

Yesterday I finally got my instrument cluster out of the car, unfortunately it didn't do me a lot of good as far as the ventilation goes.

The climate control... eh, controls uses a combination of vacuum and electrics in order to control where and how the air goes. The switches that are up at the dashboard connects via vacuum lines to various vacuum controlled gates that in turn let hot or cold air into the system.

Vacuum lines are also used to control the speed of the fan. How this works I can't tell you because I don't know. And I don't know why this design was even used to begin with where electric switches and wires should be enough.

Anyhow, I can't just measure voltage at the switches because there are none to be measured as far as I can tell. The problem could be with the actual fan motor but as I have to remove the front passenger fender (and in the process the front bumper) in order to get to it (no kidding) I won't go there unless I really have to. Thus I've, once again, turned to the V8 Buick forum for advice.

Now that I have the cluster out I'm going to do two things; adjust the fuel meter as it shows 1/3 empty when the tank actually is empty and replace the clock with a tachometer. I have the one lying around that came with the car, bolted to the dash (looked ugly like hell). With a bit of luck I can fit it in the old clock housing.

Not a lot of work done but I kind of ran into a wall with all the disassembly overhead needed to get to the fan motor.