When we last saw our hero, Murphy the 87 T-Wag, he / she was itching to change the instrument cluster backlight from green to orange. I went to the J Yard yesterday to hunt for an 85 - 86 digi-dash and a bunch of orange bulbs. Found one and pulled the dash from an 86 GL-10. Three plugs appear compatible; the one in the center is not. When three of the four are plugged in, you can make out the numbers and stuff on the console, I am willing to bet that the fourth one controls the backlighting as it doesn't work when not plugged in. Also, I don't see any hint of a turbo indicator on the dash. When I found the dash I figured the car was a turbo since it was a GL-10 and all GL-10's are turbos. FOOOOOOLISH SAMURAI!! Of coarse I have now learned, thanks to the wonders of the search function, that not all GL-10's were turbo'ed. Here are the questions that I have.

 

1. I am deducting that the 86 dash is LCD which requires backlighting to be visible. Is this correct?

 

2. Did they make some LCD dashes without a turbo indicator built in?

 

3. Does anyone have a pic of a functioning 85 / 86 digi-dash so I can see what the properly lit display looks like?

 

4. Can someone tell me what my fourth question was? I forgot!!!

86 fwd gl-10 came as spfi

When it gets dark tonight I'll take a pic of my GL-10 Turbo Wagon. I think the display is florescent, but not 100% on that. I know the 83/84 digidashes are.

As far as I know, all digital dashes were vacuum florescent. LED's would not be bright enough.

WOW! I didn't realize finding little red light bulbs to replace the little green light bulbs from the instrument cluster would be so difficult / impossible. I have a couple of ideas to MacGeyver the thing:

A) I could paint the clear bulbs red. I know there is a way to do it, or...

Use ultra-bright red LED's instead. That would definitely add to the coolness factor, though I would be the only one who know just how cool it is since no one else would be able to see that there are ultra-bright LED's in the cluster.

 

Also, I talked to the Subaru parts counter guy I always go to, and he will see if he can get me the FSM wiring diagrams for the 85 and 87 dashes.

Last night I continuity tested some of the circuits on the 86 digi-dash (the orange one). I think I picked a dud because many circuit are grounding out that shouldn't be; both contacts where the light bulb plugs in, for example. If that turns out to be the case, I may stick with the old green dash, but change the backlight scheme to a VW blue on red. I'll be pertty busy this week-end so I don't know when I'll get to it, but I'll post pics when I'm done.

 

PS. I haven't gotten hold of the FSM dash diagrams yet, and am not sure I will.