My 1987 Two Door Crown Victoria AKA THE BROWN BLOB

[87gtVIC]

yea, the HVAC has a color cap

Now how do you remove it?

[1990LTD]

Doesn't it just pull off of the light bulb? I can't remember about the HVAC but the rear defrogger has a little yellow bulb with a blue cap over it that just comes off.

[insomniac391]

i like it cause its something different, green just seems boring to me now.

[85crownHPP]

aahhh it may just be one of those color gelcap thingies. i didn't remember opening up mine to remove a big plastic cap like in an older speedo, but it may have been a gelcap which comes out with the bulb.
Once you get the HVAC unit out (be careful un-plugging the vacuum harness connector!) the bulb just twists out just like from behind a speedo cluster.
If you have tiny china-man hands, are a contortionist, and have some good angle-tip needle nose pliers, you might be able to do it without removing the unit

[1990LTD]

funny, i have huge hands and could unplug/unscrew the bulb socket from the back without taking it out

[85crownHPP]

really?? hhmmm... must not be as cramped in 90-91 cars. I had the dash apart in mine already installing gauges so i didn't even try from behind.

[gadget73]

gel cap on the bub sounds right. I forget, its been a couple years. I know I didn't take it apart like the speedometer.

[1990LTD]

really?? hhmmm... must not be as cramped in 90-91 cars. I had the dash apart in mine already installing gauges so i didn't even try from behind.

I'll not claim that it was easy to do. My hand hurt like a bastard afterward

any details on what you did to that funky cupholder?

[87gtVIC]

One blue 3 inch neon tube along with two blue LEDs for courtesy lights. Three green LEDs on a switch to light up the console only when I want it lit. A Red light indicator only lit while the car is in the run or accessory position and a 12volt plug.

[87gtVIC]

ClusterFuck

Started messing around with the dual electric gauge install. Ran into a little problem with the hole saw drilling in the wrong spot…OKAY it was me who drilled in the wrong spot but it was the saw who sawed….Anyways I chopped into the ducts for the directionals and had to do some reconstruction. But all is well, nothing a little creativity, JB weld and some metal cant fix up.

Pilot holes drilled for the hole saw:



A shit gauge fitted for looks:



The accuracy of my hole saw…not my hole saw but a friend of my dads hole saw:



In the process of drilling the other hole out:



Some shots of the huge mess I made lol:





And the results of my labor:







Drilling the holes was nerve wracking because even though this speedo was a spare I bought I still didn’t want to ruin it. Going through the speedo face was cake, but entering into the thick speedo backing plate (white plastic cluster part) really made me work.

As said previously I fucking marked the holes wrong (not really much room for error or success so I consider myself lucky) and cut the ducts of the turn signals. So below are some pics of me repairing them up:







Here is a plate (sitting on the cluster backing not JB welded in yet) it is going to be installed on the curved part to seal up the directional duct:



Don’t worry about my fabbed up cluster bulb plate. It is not in the way of the gauge at all.

More to come……

[86VickyLX]

Ohh nice save on the turn signals mang. It's one of the reasons I just dropped that project all together.

[Nathan in MI]

How would you normally avoid cutting into the turn signal bulb mounts? It looks like in order to miss them, the holes would need to be higher, but you're already at the top of the speedometer face.

[86VickyLX]

How would you normally avoid cutting into the turn signal bulb mounts? It looks like in order to miss them, the holes would need to be higher, but you're already at the top of the speedometer face.

You'd cut higher, cut right over the check engine light, that's still partially there.

Dave you're gonna have to cut the circuit board I believe to allow the back of the gauges to stick out and wires to come out too (make sure you follow the wires so you don't cut the wrong ones!!)...

[87gtVIC]

How would you normally avoid cutting into the turn signal bulb mounts? It looks like in order to miss them, the holes would need to be higher, but you're already at the top of the speedometer face.

I do not think there is a way to avoid them. So little room to work in that moving any which way lands you upon another problem. Another major difficulty is the fact that the speedometer slops downward as it spans from right to left giving one less and less room to play with on the left side.

Dave you're gonna have to cut the circuit board I believe to allow the back of the gauges to stick out and wires to come out too (make sure you follow the wires so you don't cut the wrong ones!!)...

Yeah that is my next concern. Thankfully Blaze has the diagram covered for me!

[86VickyLX]

I do not think there is a way to avoid them. So little room to work in that moving any which way lands you upon another problem. Another major difficulty is the fact that the speedometer slops downward as it spans from right to left giving one less and less room to play with on the left side.



Yeah that is my next concern. Thankfully Blaze has the diagram covered for me!

You're gonna run the civillian circuit board right? The one with the extra lights on the bottom right?