Ok, so I cleared the green film off the back of my gauge faces and they look awesome!!!!

http://www.clubwrx.net/forums/showth...0&pagenumber=4


However, the tach needle got pushed in so that it was flush with the gauge face during the clearing process. As I was trying to pop it back into place, the needle came off. So I've been playing with it for a week or so and have gotten it in pretty good shape. The tach works, shows a 500-750rpm idle, etc. But under WOT applications, it seems to "tick" rpms instead of flowing smoothly and when I shift gears the needle seems to *slowly* slip to the right rpm instead of swinging quickly to the correct position. (Hope I explained that so its understandable). Another member suggested that I put a slight amount of glue on the pin that goes into the tach assembly to solve this problem.

This logically makes sense to me; right now the needle is not being gripped properly by the tach motor, hense the ticking of rpm's under WOT and the needle not falling properly when I put it in neutral or when switching gears.

Although this logically makes sense to me, I'm not sure how the gauge cluster actually works and I don't want to end up with a stuck needle or one that bounces around. So does anybody know how the needles in the cluster work? i.e. the mechanism that turns the pin connected to the needle to display the rpms to the driver. Does the needle come from the factory with some sort of glue/sealent to make it work properly? Thanks in advance.

 

This may not be what you want to hear, but when something like this happens while messing with the gauges it usually can't be fixed. The gauges are very precise electrical meter movements and the needles are never intended to be taken off and replaced. Any amount of physical force on them is enough to ruin the gauge.
Whenever someone asks ahead of time about modifying their gauges, the informed response is, "don't".
I'm afraid that unless you are very, very lucky and are able to find a way to fix the damage, you will end up buying a new cluster.

 

I'm aware that the gauge cluster is very sensitive and needles aren't supposed to be taken off and it was in no way my intention to. Unfortunately it happened, so now I'm on this quest to fix my gauge. I'm seriously considering buying an STi cluster, but they're pretty expensive. My tach is very close to being perfect, but its still not the same as it was when it was stock. Although now it is the hawtness