hubertpoznan

Hello, I am assembling a digital dash to the car from 1990, unfortunately my odometer he burst, he crumbled, he crashed.

I am looking for a good odometer,
I am asking for help in searching.

Cehbra

iTrader: (1)

It's difficult to find just the odometer section alone. Your best bet is to get a complete dash, like this one:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/87-89-Fireb...AAAOSweoBa7z50

Or maybe you can find it in the classified section here.

If you really are putting a digital dash into a 1990 Firebird you should make a thread on this forum!

Davidgou

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Wow, great work. I just went over the entire thread. I'm definitely subscribing.

RunawayRadio

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Now that looks clean. Nice work!

Lookout on that wiring knot for the stereo in the centre. I found with the tape on the wire there isn't much room under the radio pod there. It might not fit properly until you 'massage' those wires flat.

Cehbra

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thanks

Cehbra

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ok, I'll keep that in mind. This will help me when I put the radio pod back soon

Cehbra

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Another day off and some spare time to work on the dash while the kids are at school

Today I tackled that steel bracket behind the dash carrier. I had to decide whether to use the old rusty one from the 88 digital dash or the one from the 91 analog dash. Unfortunately the steering wheel section is quite different. With the 91 version I hoped to have it easier to mount the fuse box, the convenience center and the under dash panel. But in the end I settled for the 88 bracket, as that one just fits nicely.

So after a lot of cleaning, priming and two coats of black I mounted it back to the dash carrier and fixed it with some M5 nuts and bolts where I had previously removed the rivets.

Cehbra

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Well on to the next step. I did a quick fit test which looked promising. So I thought I could as well go ahead and mount that thing.

There is a vertical steel bar of which I forgot to take a picture. This one secures the dash harness to the front part. The rest of the harness is sandwiched in between the air ducts and the dash carrier. Surprisingly all went in without too many problems.

Cehbra

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And with all Edit: most of the beauty plates and the dash pad mounted. Looks promising.

Of course that one big question remains: is it working?

Cehbra

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Yep.

Cehbra

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It's really nice to see the digital dash finally in the car after so many months of collecting parts, studying diagrams, preparing and cleaning, soldering, trials and errors.

There are some quirks, especially on the lower left and right side I'll need a thick washer to fix the dash carrier to the support brackets as there is a gap of about 5 mm. And then of course all the wires hanging from the top will need to be mounted nicely.

But finally there is some light at the end of the tunnel...

aseychell

Some digital light from the 80s

All I can say is a big well done mate!!

Cehbra

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Thank you.

Davidgou

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Looks great!

84redta

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Way to go, happy to see you making so much progress! once I get my body blasted I'll be starting my restoration thread, but soon I'll be testing my dash wiring for my digital swap outside the car to make sure everything looks good before I start to tap in for my customizations. with that said, you happen to have any luck with lower odometers? Keep up the good work, look forward to seeing a video of the dash in full function!

Cehbra

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Cehbra

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@84redta, you're lucky today, see my addendum here:

https://www.thirdgen.org/forums/elec...ml#post6222818

Happy?

mmadden55

https://www.intellitronix.com/produc...al-gauge-panel

Cehbra

iTrader: (1)

Not sure what you are trying to say...

To me nothing beats the look of the OEM digital dash. It's definitely a lot more time consuming and more expensive than putting the aftermarket gages in. But to me it's a heartfelt thing and I think it was worthwhile to go through the trouble.

scooter

iTrader: (11)

Those Intellitronix look like *** to me, I don't know why anyone would want those in their car. It looks like something I could put together on my own. The factory gauges definitely don't look like something I could build, they look a lot cooler and more modern than those simple 7-11 (or whatever) segment displays.

84redta

iTrader: (34)

Kudos and hate off! Amazing that you had that figured out in 4 hours, Haha absolutely impressed. I'll take one, and with that said, wanted to say thank you for the 3d model of the radio plate. I never put two and two together with the threads and your user name until today, and after the health scare you had on that thread I feared the worst since there was no more posting afterwards. Anyways, a buddy took your file and made one for me to test fit, and we will be going back in with a nicer material second time around. With that said do you still have access to the foil print to make the panels look factory? May be interested if I can't find a print service locally, and potentially combine shipping if that's possible. I'd need to check on that first, but, anyways, enough of my hijack of your digi dash thread with other topics, but again thank you for all your diligent work for the third gen community!

Cehbra

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Cehbra

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As we moved away from Basel last year I currently don't have access to a foil print service anymore. I'll have to find another one sooner or later though.

Cehbra

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A little update:

One thing I noticed just today is that when I press the "E/m" button next to the odometer the mileage value will switch from miles to kilometers - right as intended. However, the speedometer didn't.

Of course I can't drive around with a miles to km conversion table attached to the windshield so I had to resolve that problem.

I did some switching in and out of boards and changing EEPROMs to find the problem. In the end it was the odometer board. I have three of them - two from the USA and one from Germany. The german board worked correctly, the other two didn't.

The one that works is on the left side:

Cehbra

iTrader: (1)

There is no visible difference in the boards, they also share the same part number. It can't be a coincidence that the US board doesn't' work that way though. Probably it is intended not to switch from miles to km.

There are some export versions that also have a different temperature range display (both of mine are the same however). There are some secrets yet to be resolved...

Cehbra

iTrader: (1)

I would be glad if some of you guys with a digital dash could post your experience with that!

When you press the E/m button what happens? Does the odometer value switch from miles to km alone - or also the speedometer?

Input very much appreciated!

aseychell

Mine changes both speed and odometer. Will post pic of the board later

Cehbra

iTrader: (1)

Thanks!


Any other observers?

RunawayRadio

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My Canadian '87 GTA changes correctly. I wonder if one of the components in the dash output is failing on both boards? They are 30 years old now.

Cehbra

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Thanks for that info!

You could be right about the problem being about age.

Any US digital dash owners who could chime in about the speedo switching from miles to km?

smokingss

Back in the late 90s, I had a 'GTA with the digital dash. And yes, the "e/m" button would change both the odometer and speedometer to KM. I would always fool passengers in my car by making them think I was going faster than I actually was, lol. I currently have another '88 GTA with the digital dash but that's been sitting since right before I got married 5 years ago so there's no way I can easily check that one(62k original miles). My other '88 GTA currently is analog so that's no help(Factory Notchback car though).

Cehbra

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lol cool story!

Thanks for the input. Looks like I'll have to check those boards then.

Cehbra

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Mounting that double din radio was a total pain in the whatever. Well I was warned by RunawayRadio that there isn't much room to work with inside the radio pod. As it turns out he was totally right.

First I had to shave that plastic frame inside the pod and I also had to cut off a few millimeters of the bulge at the end of the center console. That way my double din radio - a Kenwood DNX8170DABS - would just fit ever so tightly sideways. However that knot on the radio harness came in the way all the time and there just wasn't enough clearance for the radio to fit in lengthwise

In the end I had to split the harness into 2 separate strands for some 10 inches to finally get it to fit. The radio actually still isn't flush and sticks out about 1/3 of an inch, not much but it bugs me a bit. As there absolutely isn't any more room underneath I guess I'll have to live with that.


Shaved off quite a bit of plastic, now it's a little flimsy but when mounted it sits well:

Cehbra

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Here are some test pics, I need to get it all cleaned up and fine tuned yet. And two of the dash beauty plates are still missing, I'm waiting for them to arrive. And yes, I kept the analog HVAC controls for the moment. The digital HVAC will be a future project.

Better pictures are coming soon.

Cehbra

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A mood picture

RunawayRadio

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It's tricky to work with the dimensions of that pod. I got around it by mounting a low depth double din media receiver. The parrot asteroid smart is only 3-3.5" deep but even then it was pretty tight. Sits flush though.

Overall, looks really good. It's the first time i've ever seen anyone finish the swap correctly and not just scrap the car halfway though, lol. Nice work.

Cehbra

iTrader: (1)

I thought about that parrot asteroid, looks like that would have been a good option as well. I got used to my Kenwood unit though and that little protruding edge doesn't really bother me anymore.

Thanks for your acknowledgement. I know about some people who swapped from analog to digital within the 1986 to 1989 model years, but I didn't know there were attempts to do it to later years as well.

Cehbra

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As promised, here are some better pictures. I got the car all cleaned up and tested out.

That left door ajar sensor quit the service today, so I'll have to reopen the driver side door, sigh But apart from that there's nothing to complain about. Everything working flawlessly.

Cehbra

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84redta requested a video of the dash in action. Well at least I tried...

aseychell

Hey. You sure the oil pressure gauge is working? I would make sure it’s working as it is a vital metric to monitor.

Mine goes to max especially when in normal temperature.

Cehbra

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aseychell

Yes I saw it but to me 30 is a bit too low. Maybe you can get other views from members.

As I said mine is normally in the 60 regions and I replaced the sender very recently just to be sure. You can measure resistance at the sensor. You should be able to find a table with resistance vs pressure somewhere on here.

Cehbra

iTrader: (1)

Ok thanks for that input aseychell. If I remember correctly my old analog setup showed an oil pressure in the same range, so that hasn't changed with the digital dash. As far as I checked on the 1988 manual the 1988 and the 1991 sending units have about the same resistance range as well so it should read correctly.

I've heard that 10 psi per 1000 rpm should be enough oil pressure, is that wrong?

aseychell

For sure I am not going to dare taking the lead of an authoritative source but what I can say is that mine WHEN COLD, it is at full max, at times the range goes even beyond the 60 momentarily and returns down. It will eventually decrease to 3/4 of the display at idle when hot.

scooter

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30 warm is normal pressure for these cars

Cehbra

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Thank you, glad to know!

Cehbra

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I thought I'd share some of my experiences with the digital dash.

I've been driving the car to work a few times now. What really surprises me is how readable the speedo is even in direct sunlight. I never had any problem reading those digits. That I can't say about the odometer as this display can be hard to read at times. And the DIC is in a whole different league. I think that piece was designed by a different team and it's as good as unreadable under normal daylight conditions. Doesn't really matter though. The DIC contents are hardly relevant while driving.

The dash is very responsive and there's nothing to complain about the overall day to day usability.

Now that the dash is in the car I got used to it quickly. In the end the part that was the most fun was the process of doing it. Now that I'm finished after all those weeks and months it doesn't look or feel that special. Which is kinda nice too, because what really matters is whether it gets it's job done - and it does.

I don't know if I'd do it again. But as I said, I had a lot of fun doing it!

Cehbra

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So if anybody wants to do the same I recommend a good heap of insanity and lots of time. Preparation work is crucial. A complete Firebird service manual 1988 is needed as well as the service manual of the year of the receiving car. All the special infos I gathered are in this thread, and links to the odometer thread as well.

And of course doing that swap will require a working digital dash with the carrier and a harness to work with - the harness doesn't need to be complete. The three dash plugs should do, except if you want to swap from analog to digital in the same generation (1986-1989), then you'll need a matching dash harness, but also the front and rear lights harness.

I will gladly answer questions as far as I can.

Thank you all for your support! Couldn't have done it without you!

Davidgou

iTrader: (2)

Wow Cehbra, awesome work. Your video looks great! Congratulations! My original digital dash switched to KM or Miles on the odometer as well. I replaced it with a Canadian dash and it works the exact same way.

aseychell

Cehbra

I am currently re assembling my dash and tidying up a bit the looms. I forgot to take a photo before I removed the loom from the dash and now I have doubt on which side the attached connector should go. Is this way the right orientation? Maybe you have some high res photos while you were doing yours as the ones online are not clear enough to zoom in. As you can see currently the part with an open end of the connector is at the passenger side.

Also on a related note, I can’t get the special neon like light on top of the dimmer switch to work. Not sure yet if the dash lights work as all is in boxes however the courtesy lights facing the floor work fine even the dome light. There is no power to the wires for this neon light. Tried parking lights on, ignition on... nothing.

I am reading about that transistor near the radio pod. Do you think it is related? It is all wired but I didn’t test it in isolation.