69 Notch Barracuda - Rebirth

So, after a severely enjoyable summer with lots of short and long afternoon drives.. I finally shut her down for the winter. A few days later, I tore into the dash to fix various issues (fuel gauge, Speedo head, instrument lights, frazzled appearance)...

For those searching in the future.
1969 Barracuda instrument dash cluster removal:

1. Disconnect neg battery cable
2. Disconnect the Speedo cable (clip-on for a ‘69.. not threaded) at rear of Speedo head.
3. I had to remove my AC duct/venting under the radio, etc. I’m not sure what others have.
4. Pull cigarette lighter out of receptacle.
5. Reach under and behind console to rear of cigarette lighter and grip rear cigarette lighter housing and unscrew. The lighter receptacle and rear receptacle portion clamp to the console face. It’s very difficult to get a grip back there.. and may be seized like mine.. but it did come loose with just the use of my hand.
6. Remove upper and lower phillips head screws around entire cluster face.
   
7. Lower steering column an inch or so
8. Knobs: No need to remove the temp slider, fan speed, light switch, wiper switch (probably remove this now, since it is just a friction fit.. I did it on the bench and it’s unnecessarily risky to separate at that time), hazard switch, radio dials, until after the cluster is out.
   
9. Start to rotate cluster out.
10. The first resistance will be the heater temp slider control cable where it’s attached in the rear. My radio was totally in the way, or it would have been pretty easy to disconnect from underneath. But my radio was a real bich to get out (a bolt and hanger in back and the two incredibly frustrating peg/slots in the dash front that connect to the front radio hangers), but I was able to loosen/bang on the radio enough to disconnect the heater cable from the front with a long (14” or so) flat head screw driver... slip the cable end off rear slider by pushing/wedging downward on cable, then another long screw driver from underneath (in front of hanging radio) to free the cable housing clamp.
11. Lift entire cluster face up a little as you’re trying to rotate it further out now... to get it past the lower edge of the dash housing.. this gives your hand a little more room to start reaching behind.
12. Take pictures
13. Start detaching plugs. If I were to do it over, I would have wedged a flat head screw driver between plug body slots that clamp around the little brass pins to try and loosen them, but whatever.. they were pretty seized and these are old brittle pins and not sure I would have tried to reuse them anyway.
14. Once the cluster is out, taking it apart is easy.
15. Knobs first: light switch uses push button in the housing to release the knob/shaft. Allen screw for heater slider control.
16. Slotted threaded front facing clamps for various switches come loose with either a set of snap ring pliers wedged into the slots, or a sharp edged punch and a controlled rap with a hammer.
17. The rest of the screws that clamp the rear to the front are self explanatory. I was very happy when the two halves separated easily and there were no falling pieces that were once wedged between them that I was going to have to try and figure out where the hail they went :thankyou: