JDM EL cluster install using pre-facelift loom
(Submitted by the Dark One)
Right, here is a write up for doing the EL swap with the JDM EL cluster, the JDM EL loom, and a pre-facelift loom. This is useful if your EL loom doesn't have sunroof/cruise/tcs functions but your old loom does. I don't know if this will work for any other type of EL clusters since all I could find on the net were the write ups for USDM clusters, and most of the wires went to different places!
Removal of dash parts:
Remove both tweeter covers (pull off)
Remove the 8 screws holding the gauge visor on, and remove visor (you will need a stubby screwdriver)
Pull up plastic strip at bottom of gauges - not held on by anything
Unscrew plastic divider that sits between speedo cluster and temp gauges (1 screw at top)
Remove screws holding in tinted plastic covering temp gauges (should be 2 I think) and pull plastic off
At this point the clock wiring will still be plugged into the temp gauges, so disconnect that from the unit
Unscrew temp guages (4 screws, 2 either side) and remove gauge unit. There are 3 connectors to undo as well. The unit should tilt towards you IIRC and then pull out
Now unscrew the speedo cluster (4 screws) and pull it out (will tilt towards you). There are 2 connectors on this to undo
Now you should have your entire dash out with the wiring going across it.
Wiring loom removal:
You need to remove your glovebox now - 4 screws visible, about 4 screws inside the glove box when you open it, and a hidden screw behind the plastic panel that closes on the door - just lever it off and unscrew.
Now pull the glovebox towards you, it is hooked on a clip but should come off easily enough.
You now need to remove the drivers side fusebox cover, this just pulls away and off towards you (you will need to have the bonnet release pulled out though) and it helps to remove the thin bit up towards the A pillar first
You can also remove the bit under the steering wheel - there are a few screws visible, 1 I think in the coin tray, and a hidden one behind the equivalent piece of plastic on the drivers side.
Now the fun bit - the removal of the loom....
Disconnect the 2 grey connectors on the passenger side. If you look up under where the glove box was you should see the connectors there. You can tug the wiring out from the dash and it should help them get undone. These will slip through the hole that is behind the passenger tweeter cover. Be warned all pre-facelift wiring looms I've had have been covered in a very sticky tape that is annoying, so perhaps you could wear gloves at this point!
The drivers side is a bit harder. If you look where you removed the fusebox cover, there should be 2 grey connectors going into a double connector. These need undoing (mine were very tight, so I jammed a flat blade screwdriver in there and prised them out), the wiring from here also goes to a blue connector that is plugged in just above the fuses, this was easier to get out, but again just pull the whole loom if it's stuck.
Now you can pop off your 2/3 button unit by the steering wheel (use a flat blade screwdriver) and disconnect all your plugs.
To pull up the drivers side harness is very hard! You will notice there are a load of brown clips holding the loom in place over the dash, I just knocked these through with a screwdriver since there was no way I was going to be able to put them back on! There is a tricky one holding the cruise/sunroof parts in, just visible near the hole where the loom goes behind the tweeter cover. Once you've got this out, you can pull the sunroof/cruise wiring through first. Once that is through, you need to cut the wires going to the sunlight sensor on the dash (1 green and 1 white). I don't know if you can easily remove it, but I reattached the wires in the finish with a couple of bullet connectors.
So now the hardet part - getting the 3 connectors up through the drivers side! You need to pull through the loom and get the yellow connector through first, and then feed the 3 connectors up through the dash 1 by 1, on their side. With some jiggery pokkery you can do it - trust me!
Now you should have the entire loom out - jobs a good'un
Re-wiring the loom:
So you should have an old loom and a EL loom. You will notice most of the connectors are the same except the EL guages require 3 connectors going to them. Luckily if you have the EL loom you can cut these off and use them, if not you'll need a new 6 pin connector (common in Honda's so I'm told)
So from your old loom, you need to cut the 2 gauge cluster plugs off at the plug end to leave as much bare wire as possible. There is a 10 pin plug and a 16 pin plug, although not all the plugs are used. This should leave you with some wire to play with.
Secondly, you need to unwrap some wire from your EL loom then go about cutting the wires from there. You want to aim to leave as much wiring on the connector as possible. I traced the individual wires from the connectors down the loom, and cut them off with about 12-15 inches of wiring on them.
So now you should have your old loom with a load of bare wires, and 3 connectors with 12-15 inches of wiring hanging out of them.
Now it's a job of colour matching the connectors up. The 16 pin connector should have 4 wires going into it:
Yellow - power
Black - ground
Red/Yellow tracer - to dimmer
Reb/Black tracer - lights on input
However I've discovered unless you have an auto lude, you don't need this connector (there PCB that it goes to doesn't connect to anything inside my gauge cluster) so you can effectively ignore this connector, which cuts out some of the work!
Then I did the yellow 6 pin connector. One of the pins is not connected, so you have:
Green/Blue tracer - Left indicator +ve
Red/Yellow tracer - High Beam On
Reb/Blue tracer - High Beam On
Green/Yellow tracer - Right indicator +ve
No Wire
Black - Ground
So for these you should have the equivalent wires already on the old loom. If you wire it up so you have about 6 inches of play in the wires this will allow you to plug the connector in the gauge cluster. I connected the ground with the other grounds, or you can scotchlok it if you want, the other 4 wires either come from the left or right of the old loom, you should be able to see what goes where (just colour match and you can't go wrong). You may need to shorten some wires but that's to be expected.
Lastly is the 10 pin connector, although 1 pin isn't used, so you have:
Yellow - Power
Pink - 4ws??
White/Yellow tracer - Permanent 12v memory for trip mileage
Red/Black tracer - lights on input
Black - Ground
Orange - Speedo signal
Light Green - Allows you to reset the trip counter
Red/Yellow tracer - To Dimmer
Blue - Rev Counter signal
This took the most time, but again it is all colour matching from the original loom. You don't need to wire up the red/black wire or the red/yellow wire at the mo, that is to do with the dimmer. I don't know what the pink wire does, I thought it was the 4ws bulb since I had 4ws on my old loom, but the new cluster didn't have the 4ws light??? I hooked it up to the pink wire anyway on the old loom. The White/Yellow tracer wire goes across the whole loom if you expose it, so I scotchlok'd it into that. The light green wire for some reason only goes to one of the connectors on the temp guages. This allows you to reset the trip mileage (similar in effect to resetting the clock). The rest of the wires I either spliced into the existing loom (i.e. power and ground) or just connected to the old wires that were visible. You will again need to leave about 6 inches of wiring free so you can get the connector into the top of the gauge cluster. If you assume all connectors come off the main loom at the same point you should be ok.
So at this point you should be finished with the wiring. I tested mine by just plugging it in under the driver/passenger side to save feeding it through the holes (pointless if anything goes wrong!!) and plugging it in to the cluster. When you turn it on you may get what I had, the needles light up but the backlight takes 10-15 seconds. This isn't a problem for me. Turn the car on to make sure the rev counter works as well, and try out the indicators and pulling back the headlight stalk to see if the 'headlights on full' display works. I also took it out for a spin to make sure the speedo worked.
So the next job is to put it all back! You need to feed the loom back through the holes and plug them back in, it's a bit annoying to do on the drivers side but just get your hand up there and persevere Remember to wire the sunlight sensor wires back up, and feed through the sunroof/cruise wires as well after you've put the loom in.
Then connect the gauge cluster back up and put it where the old one was. It's a pain fitting the invertor box behind the tweeter but I removed some of the metal tabs to make it easier. You can just leave it behind the tweeter cover. You could test it again at this point to make sure it still works, and if it does, put everything back in the dash! Just move the loom out of the way if it's in the way, I ran it back across the top of the dash.
With regards to the dimmer, I think you should have a spare Red/Black tracer wire coming from the old loom. If you wire this up to the Red/Black tracer wires I didn't connect that go to the EL's, it should make your display dim, but I haven't tried it out (cos I like it at full brightness at night!)
Also, I left mine to work in km/h since I'm relying on my Apexi RSM to tell me my true speed in mph, but if you have a convertor you can wire it up as normal.
If you encounter any problems, post them up or PM me and I'll do my best to help. I hope this helps someone installing the EL gauges. It is easy if you have the loom but I found it just as simple to spend 30 mins cutting some wires.
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