Been working on this for 2 days and it's finally done! Didn't think I'd get there but I couldn't turn back! Pics coming soon...

Original idea:
Purchase Type S full cluster.
Basically plug and play with 2 issues
- D4 would skip over to D5 (according to Helm)
- VSA would light up continuously and TCS was covered up

Unfortunate/overlooked issues...
- Mileage not corrected (showing 16k instead of 72k)
- Heat gauge goes above H after 30 seconds
(thought it was a faulty heat gauge, turns out it was a faulty TL-S cluster board)

Great idea... turned out not so great...
Since I wanted to retain the mileage and have the white gauges and eat my cake too... I thought I would keep the original 99 TL-P board (which housed the mileage chip) and just swap out the guages and figure out how to align the gear display.

The gear display was the easy part... after swaping the gauges, neither the fuel worked (no movement at all) nor the Heat gauge (shot up to past H immediately). I then discover that the TL-S Fuel and Heat gauges have different pinouts / orientation... not to mention that the LCD screen pins were soldered directly on the circuit board which I also wanted to swap.

Solutions

LCD
The LCD screen was the "no turning back" mod. I took a small pair of pliers and clipped all 30 pins on my original TL-P cluster board. Then I proceeded to clip all 30 of the TL-S pins. The Philips screws were solder filled and required desoldering. I swapped the screens and re-soldered all 30 pins and just prayed that it would light up properly which, thank god it did...

Gear Display
This was an easy trick... The little bulbs on the circuit board are housed with rubber on the bottom. I used the TL-S housing which had 1-D5 spaces and I simply spread the N and the D4 bulbs apart and placed the housing over top, forcing the bulbs in the right slots and leaving the D5 cavity without a bulb. Only issue is that the one of the clips in the rear will not close 100% upon re-assembly (I can live with that)

Fuel and Heat gauges
This was by far the most difficult to correct. The gauge pins go through the circuit board, flower out in the rear over a round circuit connection point and is soldered on. To correct the pinouts, I had to desolder and remove all 6 pins (3 each), use a knife and dig up the round contact in the rear and remove them all. Then I reinstalled all the pins which now do not connect to anything. They are now a bit wobbly but work just fine.

To figure out which pins were what, I had to trace the circuit board until I knew basically if it was ground or some sort of positive signal. I then took both bare boards and hooked them up to the car, used a volt meter to confirm 100% what the pins were. I found 1 x ground, 1 x 12volt (ignition), and one negative signal (bingo!). I wrote the -ve numbers down and tried the other board... (bingo!) correct signals located.

The fuel gauge from the TL-P and TL-S are actually different and the TL-P gauge did not have a proper ground but since I knew the correct signal wire, I just ignored the odd connector and patched a ground in.

I mapped everything out and soldered trace wires in the rear to correct the pin layout.

TCS / VSA
Finally to correct the TCS / VSA location issue, I severed the VSA connection on the circuit board with an Xacto knife and simply soldered a trace wire from the TCS over to the VSA bulb connector. So now the VSA acts as my TCS light.

After inhaling lots of solder fumes (haven't done that since I modded my PS2 3 years ago!) I plugged and prayed... works perfect!

 

must see before and after pics

 

Wow sounds like a lot of work. Definitely need some pictures!!!

 

I would have no problem doing this on mine...

i dont like all the cheesy gauges out there, i always wanted TL-S gauges...

 

I've got to say, there are a lot of DETERMINED modders on this board!

Good work!

 

Can't wait to see the pics. Looks like you did some surgery to get this to work. I'd probably be too lazy or too fustrated to do that. Good job!

 

Thanks for the kudos. Lots of surgery involved! Here are some pics...

 

wow :wow: wow lot of effort and determination put in this one! well done

 

That's very impressive! Good work!

 

Damn you got some big a$$ cajones. Nice job.

 

nice job! hey can you now rev to 7000 rpm ?

 

Hey, there is another thing, How acurate is your rpm gauge now?

And NICE work man, very impressive. The white gauges wouldn't look good on mine (beige interior) but that looks amazing on yours - hats off to a great job!!

 

Mad skills! great job!!

 

Damn you have some balls. Does the LCD screen light up like the 00+ or does it still have that crappy dim gold color LCD on the 99 TL?

 

Thanks for the great comments, everyone. The RPM gauge is no different than the TL-P gauge. Redline is no different since it's controlled by the ECU (rev limiter) it just shows 7000

I should take a pic of the LCD screen... It lights up like the 02+ Type S LCD screens do. Very bright and lmost white in color (even in sunlight). Matches well with the silver gauges.

 

Would I have to replace the LCD screen to get the brighter screen or would changing the bulbs under it help? I'm sick of the dimmly lit LCD on the 99 TLs.

 

Good job

 

Yes, you have to replace the LCD screen. To do that, you need to clip all the soldered wires from a TLS or 00+ cluster and clip all the wires from your original one and resolder them...

Check out the 2nd and 3rd picture. The 2nd shows my 99 board with the LCD clipped off and the bare wires. The 3rd pic is the 02 TLS LCD resoldered on the board. The bulbs from the 99 and 00+ are the same. It's the LCD and to be more specific, it's the filter that the light passes through before it hits the LCD. Either way, you have to clip the wires to get to it.

FYI, each one of those wires are less than 1mm in width... they were a pain in da butt to work with...

 

New minor issue... The Heat guage is much more sensitive and the normal running temp is close to the max redline / H.

I already ordered another Fuel / Heat guage and I may have damaged it initially by sending 12v to the wrong pins... if not... it's going to be resistor playing time... :smackhead

 

Very cool!! I too want to do this. I hate that stupid TCS light I have in my 99... and I want the exclamation point warning light instead. I also like the white guages better. however, I really like how my numbers are almost in italic, and I noticed on the Type S and TLP loaners I have had before had different fonts I guess. But one day maybe I'll get around to it. Good work!!!

 

cheers mate,

gotta say that is amazing work, i was thinking of doing the same thing to my ride, i see that its lotsa work but u inspired me, illkeep you posted on my progress

 

Amazing work!!! Looks great!! Good job!

Can you take a pic of the new LCD screen when lit so i can see how much brighter it is compared to the '99s...?

 

wow good work man!!



@cUr@-TL