Kronis

Picked up a free EL Cluster (Well, it cost me 10 bucks for his dinner) off a buddy of mine who did an S2K cluster swap.

It had reverse glow lenses, which I pulled off to find out the real gauge plate is automatic. Not complaining, considering it came with EVERYTHING. The inverter box, etc.

I heard the MT plate itself from honda is expensive as ****, expensive being $300, so I was wondering what the best solution would be. My buddy(different guy) told me to just electrical tape over the P, R, N stuff, but that would just look terrible. I am guessing the best way would get another faceplate? Or maybe there is better?

Edit: Also, he was explaining that his finger touched the "mirror" part of the odometer and it smudged so you can't read it or something. Does this makes sense? Can anyone explain a little better? Thanks!

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-Cory-
'92 Prelude Si

Phantom240

If you needed an MT face, I'm going to be replacing the gauge cluster in my 94 MT. I'd be willing to give it to you fairly cheap if you wanted to swap the face.

f22man87

It is possible to just put some electrical tape behind it as it is what I had to do to mine. I picked up an entire EL cluster, harness, inverter, and dimmer for less than $40 from a junkyard, but it was an automatic.

What I did was to dismantle the cluster and only pulled the faceplate out with the needles still attached (used some of the tips from the gauge cluster color conversions people have done). That let me get behind the plate and then I used some model car/airplane flat black paint. It works pretty well for covering up the PRND spots though it needs a few coats to be thick enough. For extra measure I was able to get some electrical tape to stick partially to the back of the plate. There are also some bulbs behind that part of the faceplate that just pop out---remove them. When inside the car it is noticeable when the sun glares into the cluster, but at night or other driving conditions it is hardly noticeable when it can even be seen.

As far as the smudging the parts of the cluster...they will smudge from the lightest of finger touches so either use some cloth gloves or just be VERY careful (what I did)...I managed to screw up one cluster real bad cause of that. I'm not sure about the odometer part since it is on a different circuit board inside the cluster and reflects the light to the top of the cluster where we are able to read the mileage. I can imagine it being fragile, but I'm not sure.

The only thing that you may run into though is that the cluster may still function oddly. I do not know if it is something I did, but one cluster I pulled from a 95 had no issues with the backup lights with the car, but another I have from a 96 sometimes keeps the reverse lights on constantly when the car has power. I grounded the harness properly and the turn signals work like they should. My guess is something with it being from an OBDII cluster while still on an OBDI harness (the original one I got from the junkyard 95 SI) and then being in my 92 SI. Just a heads up...I ended up pulling the reverse light bulbs out to get them to shut off as sometimes the car would work perfectly, while other times those lights would stay on while driving...I'll probably either live without or just run them to a switch on the console (swapped to the 94-96 style) so I don't get some kind of stupid ticket from the po-po! If anyone on here could shed any light on what might be going on that would be great as well...

holyabish1

+1 did the same thing. You can't tell the difference since its tinted! easy fix, just be careful with the needles.