Have changed clocks so many times I can do it in my sleep.
Ya don't need any keys or any of that pap. Take Off Steering Wheel (have someone hold it while you crack the nut)
Then take off the plastic part from behind the steering wheel. Careful to push the sides in from the bottom part otherwise you will snap some plastic - or warm it up with a hairdryer to prevent snappage.
Then pull your odo reset plunger out - just prevents it getting broken.
Next use a large screwdriver to push the side of the panel out the way - its soft plastic so you don't need those keys - do the left - then hold it out and then do the right. Pull and the clock will come forward. Be deft - don't fart about - make it look like you have done it before!
Fitting the plug back on is the trickiest part.
Also whilst you have the plastic off, look under your steering column - you'll see a 6mm Hex Bolt. Find an Allen key and tighten it up - I bet you a pint of beer its loose - and this stop your steering wheel clunking about.
Re-Installing is the reversal of removal with the exeption of your cup of coffee, you don't need to spit that out again.
MK3 Clocks Removal
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GroovyCarrot
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- Location: Saffron Walden, Essex
I helped a mate put a mk3 dash into a mk2 a year or so ago.
wasnt too hard at all. most of the mounting points are the same apart from the bottom two on a mk3 dash. there are no where for these to bolt to in a mk2 since the mk2 dash is a lot thinner. But you'll be fine just leaving them not bolted on, the other mounts will hold the dash in place just fine.
The wiring is the worst bit as all the switches are different & have different connectors on them. The easilest way round this is to swap the entire dash loom for a mk3 one. Also, as someone correctly said, the mk3 dial pod wont fit. You can get a mk2 pod to fit reasonably well in a mk3 dash by cutting some bits out of it at the sides where the pod fits in.
You also need mk3 heater control cables. these are a direct swap luckily.
wasnt too hard at all. most of the mounting points are the same apart from the bottom two on a mk3 dash. there are no where for these to bolt to in a mk2 since the mk2 dash is a lot thinner. But you'll be fine just leaving them not bolted on, the other mounts will hold the dash in place just fine.
The wiring is the worst bit as all the switches are different & have different connectors on them. The easilest way round this is to swap the entire dash loom for a mk3 one. Also, as someone correctly said, the mk3 dial pod wont fit. You can get a mk2 pod to fit reasonably well in a mk3 dash by cutting some bits out of it at the sides where the pod fits in.
You also need mk3 heater control cables. these are a direct swap luckily.
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Tahrey1043
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- Joined: Thu Sep 18, 2003 1:15 am
- Location: Birmingham! Enjoys: The pseudo-G-Smiles provided by a 1.6 Megane Sport valver...
- Contact:
In addition to JWCs method above, here's the handy dandy guide to not having to remove the radio or the steering wheel. It's blessed with my usual verbosity i'm afraid. If anyone complains, i'll reset it to small text, so it takes up less space on the server 
Things required:
Cross-head screwdriver such as you might use to take a radio apart with. PREFERABLY magnetic!
An old coathanger and a pair of tin-snips, some thin wooden barbecue skewers (for shish kebabs etc), anything similarly thin and rod-shaped to that.
Some new GT, Genesis, or G40 clocks! (if you're upgrading an SPi, preferably Genesis ones which will feature the correct rev limiter)
Patience, a gentle but strong touch, and good sight.
And good light! Do it in the midday with a bright torch on standby if you can.
First of all, take the screwdriver to the six brass screws in the corners and top/bottom centre of the back of the new pod. Remove the speedo (it's held in by the revcounter). Removing the tacho etc will require undoing bulbs and popping ribbon cables off of friction clips, so unless you're deadly curious or want to give the inside of the plexiglass a damn good clean, dont bother.
Next, get in the car. First sit in the drivers seat, insert ignition key, free the steering lock and turn the wheel to dead-ahead so the larger hole is at the top and level. Next get out and return headfirst, into the footwell, lying on your back. Looking up you'll see three screwholes, and if the lights good enough, a screw in each. Undo them, gently but firmly, as the years (and a blob of sealant) may be sticking them in place. Particularly be careful with the centre one (i snapped something there and now the screw won't stay in)!!
With the screws out, you can remove the dash surround. Again, very carefully with an eye towards where various clips go. Perversely the bottom part will come off much more easily than the top, which has tabs arranged around the hazard warning flasher, ignition switch etc, which can at least make your day an ikea-like mismatched fit misery, at worst can pull wires out of indicator circuits.
Now the juicy part - removing the existing clocks See if your improvised poking-sticks will fit into the little holes you can see, two on each side of the pod in the border, one positioned roundly central and one lower. If they go in all too easily and seem too thin, this may be a problem but it could still work - its obviously not as bad as if they're too fat to fit! What you need is a fairly snug interface between the stick and hole so it requires a little effort to move them in and out but its not a challenge.
With snug sticks in place the clocks should be free of their clips and be able to wobble about. Pull them slightly towards you and you'll feel them come free - you can now remove the poking sticks for ease of movement.
Tug the clocks towards you until they will go no further. Depending on the cable length in your own polo, this will either be when they hit the wheel or when the lighting and electronic instrument cable pulls short (it wont be a problem of the speedo cable, as this itself is held in one place and detaches very easily). Try to rotate them so they're facing rightwards if you can, downwards otherwise, and feel behind for the plug, which will be quite forcefully clipped in. You have to squeeze both the top and bottom tabs and yank it out. Then it's a matter of jostling the clocks into a position where they're perfectly at right-angles to their normal position (ie you are looking directly at the left or right end of them), and pulling them out quite easily through the hole in the wheel.
Open your old clocks up, again retrieve the speedo, and swap them over between the two guages, and reinsert / retighten the screws. If all goes well you will now have a set of instruments with a Polo blanking plate, an analogue clock, and a "plain" 120 or 140mph speedo, and another set with digital clock, tacho, and a 120mph speedo with cute lil' "change up" marks on it
(changing the faces on the speedos is quite possible, between two 120mph ones, or even making your own - but until i've finished my tests i wouldnt reccomend it as it seems to send the damn needle out of calibration no matter how carefully you replace it in the "proper" position.... and it wont stay re-calibrated if you bother to do it)
Insert the freshly built tacho + old speedo clocks in through the wheel as a reverse of removing the old ones, insert the plug in the most convenient reversal of the removal method (you dont need to bother about the tabs, and positioning it is easy even without looking at it - but getting the right angle is a total pain in the neck-gasket), position where you think it looks right, and push back into the dash while jostling about until you feel the speedo cable and all four clips slot and click into place.
Now put the steering column shroud back on, very carefully - the tabs are even more of a b*stard and potentially damaging when putting it back together - screw it back together (this is where the magnetic screwdriver proves VERY handy.... mine wasnt magnetic, can you tell?
)... and step out of the car.
Stand back to admire your handiwork for a moment
Then get back into the drivers seat, turn on the igntion - make sure all the dash lights come on. Check your parking, side, dip, full beam headlights and foglights work, the indicators, hazards flasher, and all wiper functions are still operational. Then start then engine and take a quick spin round the block to make sure everything else, particularly dashwise, is still functional (lights, fuel/temp guage). Sit on the driveway or the patch of road outside your house, revving it up and down for a while and admiring your new instruments.
....and, three days later, remember to pick one of the poking sticks back up from under the seat, and set the digital clock to the right time
Now get used to driving with a tacho and a digi clock, if you havent done it for a long time and have got used to shifting by ear/by speedo and using the centre dial to make sure you're not late, it's a bit of an unnerving experience!
...I'm now thinking of retrieving the analogue clock, getting hold of some suitably shaped clear plastic, and inserting it elsewhereon the dash where there's some "blank" space and blanked-off switches... hmm
Note: Nothing mentioned about tightening up screws/allen bolts to sturdify the steering column, as i couldnt for the life of me figure out which one that would be (and i dont have any really big allen keys). There's an ever so slight wobble to the column but nothing at all disturbing - a millimetre tops - and the source can't be traced. Perhaps the garage fixed it up at the same time as the pedal box.
Things required:
Cross-head screwdriver such as you might use to take a radio apart with. PREFERABLY magnetic!
An old coathanger and a pair of tin-snips, some thin wooden barbecue skewers (for shish kebabs etc), anything similarly thin and rod-shaped to that.
Some new GT, Genesis, or G40 clocks! (if you're upgrading an SPi, preferably Genesis ones which will feature the correct rev limiter)
Patience, a gentle but strong touch, and good sight.
And good light! Do it in the midday with a bright torch on standby if you can.
First of all, take the screwdriver to the six brass screws in the corners and top/bottom centre of the back of the new pod. Remove the speedo (it's held in by the revcounter). Removing the tacho etc will require undoing bulbs and popping ribbon cables off of friction clips, so unless you're deadly curious or want to give the inside of the plexiglass a damn good clean, dont bother.
Next, get in the car. First sit in the drivers seat, insert ignition key, free the steering lock and turn the wheel to dead-ahead so the larger hole is at the top and level. Next get out and return headfirst, into the footwell, lying on your back. Looking up you'll see three screwholes, and if the lights good enough, a screw in each. Undo them, gently but firmly, as the years (and a blob of sealant) may be sticking them in place. Particularly be careful with the centre one (i snapped something there and now the screw won't stay in)!!
With the screws out, you can remove the dash surround. Again, very carefully with an eye towards where various clips go. Perversely the bottom part will come off much more easily than the top, which has tabs arranged around the hazard warning flasher, ignition switch etc, which can at least make your day an ikea-like mismatched fit misery, at worst can pull wires out of indicator circuits.
Now the juicy part - removing the existing clocks
See if your improvised poking-sticks will fit into the little holes you can see, two on each side of the pod in the border, one positioned roundly central and one lower. If they go in all too easily and seem too thin, this may be a problem but it could still work - its obviously not as bad as if they're too fat to fit! What you need is a fairly snug interface between the stick and hole so it requires a little effort to move them in and out but its not a challenge.With snug sticks in place the clocks should be free of their clips and be able to wobble about. Pull them slightly towards you and you'll feel them come free - you can now remove the poking sticks for ease of movement.
Tug the clocks towards you until they will go no further. Depending on the cable length in your own polo, this will either be when they hit the wheel or when the lighting and electronic instrument cable pulls short (it wont be a problem of the speedo cable, as this itself is held in one place and detaches very easily). Try to rotate them so they're facing rightwards if you can, downwards otherwise, and feel behind for the plug, which will be quite forcefully clipped in. You have to squeeze both the top and bottom tabs and yank it out. Then it's a matter of jostling the clocks into a position where they're perfectly at right-angles to their normal position (ie you are looking directly at the left or right end of them), and pulling them out quite easily through the hole in the wheel.
Open your old clocks up, again retrieve the speedo, and swap them over between the two guages, and reinsert / retighten the screws. If all goes well you will now have a set of instruments with a Polo blanking plate, an analogue clock, and a "plain" 120 or 140mph speedo, and another set with digital clock, tacho, and a 120mph speedo with cute lil' "change up" marks on it
(changing the faces on the speedos is quite possible, between two 120mph ones, or even making your own - but until i've finished my tests i wouldnt reccomend it as it seems to send the damn needle out of calibration no matter how carefully you replace it in the "proper" position.... and it wont stay re-calibrated if you bother to do it)
Insert the freshly built tacho + old speedo clocks in through the wheel as a reverse of removing the old ones, insert the plug in the most convenient reversal of the removal method (you dont need to bother about the tabs, and positioning it is easy even without looking at it - but getting the right angle is a total pain in the neck-gasket), position where you think it looks right, and push back into the dash while jostling about until you feel the speedo cable and all four clips slot and click into place.
Now put the steering column shroud back on, very carefully - the tabs are even more of a b*stard and potentially damaging when putting it back together - screw it back together (this is where the magnetic screwdriver proves VERY handy.... mine wasnt magnetic, can you tell?
)... and step out of the car.Stand back to admire your handiwork for a moment
Then get back into the drivers seat, turn on the igntion - make sure all the dash lights come on. Check your parking, side, dip, full beam headlights and foglights work, the indicators, hazards flasher, and all wiper functions are still operational. Then start then engine and take a quick spin round the block to make sure everything else, particularly dashwise, is still functional (lights, fuel/temp guage). Sit on the driveway or the patch of road outside your house, revving it up and down for a while and admiring your new instruments.
....and, three days later, remember to pick one of the poking sticks back up from under the seat, and set the digital clock to the right time
Now get used to driving with a tacho and a digi clock, if you havent done it for a long time and have got used to shifting by ear/by speedo and using the centre dial to make sure you're not late, it's a bit of an unnerving experience!
...I'm now thinking of retrieving the analogue clock, getting hold of some suitably shaped clear plastic, and inserting it elsewhereon the dash where there's some "blank" space and blanked-off switches... hmm
Note: Nothing mentioned about tightening up screws/allen bolts to sturdify the steering column, as i couldnt for the life of me figure out which one that would be (and i dont have any really big allen keys). There's an ever so slight wobble to the column but nothing at all disturbing - a millimetre tops - and the source can't be traced. Perhaps the garage fixed it up at the same time as the pedal box.