[IndyAnne]

6. With the cluster on a towel on its back on the counter, remove all of the hexagonal screws holding the gauges in place. Gently remove the gauges from the frame. After removing the screws, removing the gauges is a matter of tugging gently on the plastic frames in places that have the thickest plastic. The gauges fit with threaded posts into grommets, not that they require a screwdriver, just pulling out with gentle persuasion, and re-placing with equal care. Notice all the lights behind the gauges. Someone suggested now would be a good time to replace all of those little bulbs because who knows when you will be going back in there again, and you don’t want the reason to be just to replace one burned out bulb, say, for the oil gauge.
7. Turn the frame over and remove the metal cover on the back. Gently remove all of the hexagonal screws holding the cover on. Now would be a good time to examine the soldering on the circuit board, check for any corrosion, and gently clean out all of the dust and bugs.
8. Realize now that not all of this is germane to fixing the trip odometer. But, if you want to raise the level of cleanliness, and therefore, godliness of your truck, this can help.
9. You can put the cover back over the backside. With the gauges set aside for safekeeping, turn the frame back over to the front side, and see the odometer cluster side-by-side. A small hexagonal screw holds a metal cover over the center, where the spindles of both odometers meet. A tiny piece of bent stainless steel holds the two spindles in place, so that they turn simultaneously from the work of the mileage odometer, what I will call the master odometer.
10. The master odometer has a kind of plastic sheet on its non-visible backside, held in place with some pins. This holds the gears in their proper accurate location, keeping everything legal. Just in case, it would not hurt to place a strip of transparent tape across the master odometer to hold the little numbers exactly where they were when you opened everything up. In fact, you could move this step back to step 1, but it’s ok, nothing has moved yet. You will not need to remove the master odometer, but if you are new at this and are afraid of screwing something up, this gives peace of mind.
11. With the metal cover off the middle where the two spindles meet, take a pencil or a chopstick or the end of your finger and lightly touch the tiny stainless connector holding the spindles in sync. This is to desensitize you to the concept of dealing with this area of the truck that you realize has fines and jail time associated with it. Get over it. You’re not going to mess with the master odometer at all; you’re just going to take out that trip odometer because it’s broken.
12. The right end of the trip odometer spindle is held in place in a plastic bracket that is part of the frame. Very gingerly take a small screwdriver or a manicure orange stick (whatever it takes) and pry the spindle up from the bracket. Ignore the nervous feeling in your stomach and keep your hands from shaking. It’s not that big of a deal, unless you break the bracket, then you are screwed. (but not really because you can call Truck Parts Plus and ask if they have any instrument clusters, or check on ebay, where I am currently bidding on one because the lexan cover is broken.) These parts are plastic – good reason to handle them with kid gloves.
13. With the right end of the trip odometer spindle free, lift the spindle out of the frame. The tiny stainless piece will probably fall down into the frame, but that’s ok. Shake it out and stick it aside on a piece of tape. You don’t want to have to make or find another one of those, if your instrument cluster is in great shape and does not need to be totally replaced.

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