Gauge needle starting point

[Musicars]

I am going to need to put new lights in my dash as half of them are out. When I take the cluster apart I want to be sure I put the needles back on correctly and not just where they started at when I took it apart. I always wondered about the needle locations particularly on the temp gauge. Should that be on the 160 mark with the ignition off? A couple of the other gauges are slightly off too. I'm attaching a picture of the gauges with the ignition off from the perspective of the driver.

 

[HiHoeSilver]

I am going to need to put new lights in my dash as half of them are out. When I take the cluster apart I want to be sure I put the needles back on correctly and not just where they started at when I took it apart. I always wondered about the needle locations particularly on the temp gauge. Should that be on the 160 mark with the ignition off? A couple of the other gauges are slightly off too. I'm attaching a picture of the gauges with the ignition off from the perspective of the driver.

View attachment 191445

The gauges should all 0 out with key on, engine off.

 

[Musicars]

The gauges should all 0 out with key on, engine off.

I assume by 0 you mean the first mark since the volt meter starts at 9 and temp at 160. The only bad thing is that would mean my oil pressure is probably a little lower since right now it sits at about 35-40 pounds when running. If I zero the needle then I will be a couple of pounds lower on the pressure gauge. Of course, that all assumes the factory gauges are accurate in the first place. Thanks for the help.

 

[camaroz1985]

What I do is take the needle and rotate it as far as it will go toward 0 (usually past it is where it will stop). Put a piece of tape under the needle and mark the location of the tip. Then take it off change your lights, etc, and when you put it on make sure the needle lines back up with your mark. If it is too far one way or the other when you rotate it to stop you can push it back to the correct position. Then when you power it on, it will line zero itself or wherever it is now.

 

[iamdub]

10-12 years ago, I changed the bulbs and recolored the needles in my '02 S10. I idled my truck until it reached operating temperature and noted the amount of time it took from a cold start. Then I drew simple, but accurate sketches of each gauge where the needles were pointing. I also took pics of each gauge positioning the camera centered directly over each needle. After the mods, I idled the truck again from a cold start for the same amount of time as before, then pressed each needle into their noted positions. I never noticed any skewed readings afterwards and I'm pretty particular with things like this.

 

[mooman]

Correct. The best way to "zero" them is to put down tape and mark their "zero". Once you made your repair, re-align those needles. If you were like me who didn't put tape down, be sure to have a scanner with some sort of live-graph data log. Then, run the car and set the needles close to the data being shown aka, coolant temp runs 190ish. Line up to close. Hope that helps.