Alright, so I would really love to have a cluster with the Tach on the center rather than on the side.

I was thinking, of switching the tach and speedo motors, and then making new gauges, and switching the signal leads from the connectors to send the correct signals to the new places.

I have not known or found if anyone has even attempted this, and it seems to me that the hardest part would actually simply be the making of the new gauges, as I have an SiR (my cluster is orange but is not the "carbon" look nor does it say Si) and I would like to retain the orange backlighting.

My question would be if the motors are different of could I just leave them and simply switch the signals? And how could I test them effectively? i.e. resistance with a multimeter is what I'm thinking?

I get the same resistance reading between the "+" and "-" from both the speedo and tach. And I get a reading from the "-" or "+" to "tach signal" but no reading from "-" or "+" to "speedo signal".

I have read that the speedo is a square wave if i'm not mistaken. But they seem to be the same motor driving them, so would it be theoretically possible to simply switch the signal wires and get the working? This would only leave me with the gauge face pending.

The good thing is I have a second cluster I bought for parts so this would help in testing, but I would at least like to know if I would damage anything if I switched the signal wires. I wonder if any one knows or has any input or ideas on this?


Here is the basic layout with tagged signals

Middle speedo side, left to right, negative, signal wire marked \"s" and positive

Tach side, left to right is positive and tach signal

 

If you could remake that back plastic trace flexiboard, you'd have no issue swapping them. That would be the easiest and most straight forward solution.

 

Do you mean the green flexible part? If so, I was simply thinking of changine the signal wires from the connectors as that seems simpler, rather than redoing the trace board.
i feel the gauge faces would be the hardes part, as I know that taking the needles of is a PITA as they can really easily break, so a kind of overlay would be better, but I would like to retain the orange backlighting from the Si.
My biggest question is if I can simply change the signal wires withou switching anything else

 

Do the speedo and tach have the same amount of trace connections on the flexible part? I didn't examine but if it does, then your idea of switching wires in the plugs is a quick solution indeed.

I assumed the speedo had more trace connections due to also having the odometer being a part of it, So if the speedo location has 5 connections and the tach only 3, switching wires in the plugs alone won't be enough.

 

Im not sure if the odo is part of the wiring, but the tach has a -, + and signal, speedo has -, +, signal and a fourth one that says odo. But you raise a good point, if the odo is in fact tiednin any way to the signal, then switching just the signal may not work out let me go ahead and take a look at the extra one, as well as some pics

 

So here are some pics, it seams the leads go into the circuitry, so perhaps switching just the leads would not work, if i had to remake the green flex board, iy would present no problem to me, it only requires contuctivity, so say, it could be handled by a simple wire, whic can be done


Speedo with 4 leads

Tacho with 3

Tops is speedo and bottom is tach, taken out of the cluster

 

Yep, my educated guess was accurate. Tach has 3 points of contact while speedo has 4.

You could make your own setup with wire but it will look rather ghetto. It would work and would not be difficult but yeah, looking at it anytime in the future would likely induce retching, face palming etc.

I'm not sure how viable conductive paint is. You might be able to make a flex board that way.