How do I get the guages out of the binnacle - 85 County

[Carslil Jim]

My binnacle is disintegrating and I want to take it off and reinforce it with fiibreglass. I now have only 1 screw holding it in place.

I need to get the guages out but I dont know what keeps them in.

Any advice would be appreciated.

Jim

[rar110]

Take the facia off, there will be two small nuts clamping the guage/speedo against the inside face.

[Dave_S]

To get more room to work in, you should be able to slip your hand in behind the binnacle after you remove your only retaining screw and disconnect the speedo cable. It doesn't unscrew, it sort of unclips (it's hard to describe).

You will need to pull the wires on the gauges to get them out and remove the plastic facia. I suggest you do it one at a time and reconnect the wires to individual gauges as you go. This will save you a lot of time later.

[isuzurover]

What they said.

As an aside - the instrument panel isn't expensive. So probably not worth repairing?
As for the cradle it bolts to, I made a replacement out of aluminium, rather than replace it with another piece of crappy plastic...

[roverrescue]

And just to throw another tip into the ring. If I am doing anything more than a simple globe change, the 5 minutes it takes to remove the steering wheel saves alot of heartache when playing with the gauges.
Steve

[Offender90]

Another tip - if you have an 85 county, it has a 2 part speedo cable. This means you can disconnect it under the bonnet (near the firewall) - its much much easier than doing it under the binnacle (especially when it comes to reconnection).

[Carslil Jim]

Thanks to all for advice. Apparently my speedo connection is non existent...the drive cable just inserts into the speedo and just slips in and out when removing the binnacle! I am sure that will cause grief one day.