Installing the shift light indicator in 266 easy steps

posted in: Just e28 stuff | 0

So, you’ve come to installing the shift light indicator.
Here’s one way to do it:

Remove your instrument cluster – it is held by two screws in it’s upper section, you will also need to disconnect three connectors on it’s back – white, yellow and blue.

Remove the front plastic bezel of the instrument cluster – it is held with 7 screws that can be undone with a philips or a 7mm hex tool, I personally always preffer the latter one. 
When the bezel is removed you should be looking at something like this:The tacho and revcounter can then be pulled out of the base board – with a slight wiggle they slide out of their contact pins, nothing else is holding them up:

You will then need to detach the big printed circuit board from the plastic base that holds the SI board – they are connected through a flat ribbon cable – it can be disconnected with a small flat head screw driver. Discard the SI batteries – unfortunately I have removed mine long ago, so I can’t provide pictures, but it’s pretty straight forward – just cut or unsolder their connection points and dispose of them properly.

Now you should be left wit just the main PCB with all the lights and the coolant / fuel gauge pod

The fuel and coolant gauge pod is held on the threaded rods on the needle drivers – these need to be unscrewed from the back and the pod is removed the easiest by pushing on the threaded rods:

Next is to remove the Service indicator’s LED board – you will need a small flat head screw driver for it’s three screws:

Your shift light attaches on the same three points – just use the screws you’ve just undone:

Next you can attach back the fuel and coolant pod to the main board, take care to route the three wires for the shift light, so none of them are being pinched or are in the way of any of the cluster assembly.

You will now need to get power supply and signal for the shift light board, you do that from pins 7, 8, and 16 on the blue connector, their functions are as follows:
7 – 12v in run or start ( KL 15 )
8 – RPM signal from engine control unit
16 – Ground ( KL31 )

 

The Blue connector is input from the engine and body wiring harness, the yellow connector is output to the board computer/clock regardless if fitted. A lot of the signals and voltage supply/grounds are doubled on the yellow connector, so for convenience you can solder the three wires behind the yellow connector. The end result should look like so (hopefully done better too):

Once you are done soldering you can proceed with assembly in the reverse order and testing your new feature.
Let us know if you stumble upon any trouble or have any questions.