bhavedikian Posted November 22, 2015 Share Posted November 22, 2015 I've never had a car with TPM before so I'm not interested in spending $65 or more a piece on a sensor or sensors in order to get rid of the LED on the dash. Who knows how many actually need to be replaced. It should show the pressure in each tire or at least show the low tire or tires that are low in order to have a better idea of what to replace. I didn't plan on a write-up but after everything I figured I would make one with at least text and one pic. Anyway, I pulled the gauge cluster out of my '08 LGT and resolved the issue pretty simply. I read that the needles shouldn't be pulled on our cluster so I thought I was stuck but I just tipped the side of the plastic face of the cluster and placed a strip of electric tape over the back of it to cover it so that the LED light can't hit it. Give it a try but be careful because I can't help if you break something doing this...and whatever the usual disclaimers are exactly. Tools Needed: Phillips Screwdriver - Short and fat Phillips Screwdriver - Long and fat Flat Head Screwdriver - Short and thin Flat Head Screwdriver - Short and thin Ratchet Socket - 10mm Fingers 1) Remove the negative terminal from the battery 2) Remove the kick panel under the driver's side dash. This is done by removing three clips on the front edge where the upper part of the dash with the buttons and fuse cover meet the kick panel underneath. you will also need to tilt the right side down in order to remove the OBDII socket from it. It has 2 Phillips screws holding it in. Also, you will need to lift the right side up as well to get the tab on the left side over the rocker cover panel that goes under the hood release. 3) There is a Phillips screw on the right side where the kick panel meets the dash. Once that's removed the rest of the lower dash piece comes off by pulling and popping it out because it's all pop clips from that point forward. I usually pull the fuse cover door down and then use it to pull away from the dash and then on the right side on the part next to the steering column cover. The controls on the left side have three plugs that need to be removed to full remove the lower dash piece. The tab to release the top one is facing away from the center of the car. The second and third are facing up. 4) At this point you will need the long and short Phillips screw drivers. There are two screws under the dash and then one screw in the middle of the gauge cluster above the Parking Lights toggle switch on the steering column. I'm sorry I didn't get picks of the screws under the dash. They are up in there kind of deep. There are black and white pieces of plastic sandwiched under the screws so that you know you're unscrewing the right ones. They are typical size and length for most of the screws in the car. 5) There are two clips behind the cluster that need to be removed. The tabs are on top of the plugs and they are near the top of the cluster parallel from each other. I started with the plug on the left because I have fat hands and couldn't get my hand properly behind the right side to get any leverage to push the clip down. The cluster needs to be tilted forward so that the clear plastic shield is facing down toward the Parking Lights toggle switch. Slide and wiggle to the right and slide it to the right to get it out. 6) I went inside with the cluster and put it on a towel that was folded over twice and under the cabinet lights. I used two small flat head screwdrivers to get the clips lifted to get the plastic face off and then the back off of the cluster. This was done when I thought I was going to pull the needles but found that I didn't need to do that and that it is not good to do our cluster. 7) Be very careful with these clips as they can break on you pretty easily so don't test their tensile strength with hard aggressive moves, just be delicate and slow. I started on the top curved part to get the clips off because after they were slipped over the tabs that they wouldn't snap back behind the tabs like they did on the bottom. This is the same for both sets. The screw drivers I had were tiny but not the kind you would use on glasses. I slid one under the lip of the plastic and turned it so that the blade was on its side to lift it slightly and then used the other to push the entire housing in the opposite direction. In between each clip I would place the second screwdriver in to keep the clip I just opened from snapping back. Once I moved onto the next one I would use one of my fingers in the gap between the two housings to keep them apart. 8) The main board won't slide out because the gauge needles get caught on the cluster face but it does wiggle around a little. What I did at this point was to just bend the corner up where the TPM LED is located and applied the electric tape with the gauge needles facing the ground. This let me slide it directly over the translucent cutout for the TPM icon. It was one piece that I pressed tightly a few times with my fingers. The face bends a good deal so I just bent it until I could slide my finger under and get a nice press on the tape. I trimmed the slight edge of tape sticking out. 9) I had to use window cleaner to get some fuzz off of the backside of the clear plastic before reassembly. Slide on the back cover to the cluster and then line up the tripmeter stem with the hole in the clear plastic face and then slide it down and make sure the clips are on properly and lay flat. 10) Install the cluster back in the way it was removed. I installed the top screw a bit so that it would keep the top holes lined up. Next, it was the horrible part. Trying to install the screws up into the cluster from the bottom was bad. It seemed like it should be part of the turbo inlet install because it sucked so bad. Wear glasses and keep your mouth shut. The screws bounce all over like Plinko. For the left side underneath screw I snaked my hand toward the back of the car, around the metal "hoop" and then up with the screw in my hand. I used two fingers to hold it with the screwdriver placed into the screw so I had three points of pressure. I slowly guided this into the hole and got it after a bunch of tries and swearing. The right hand side one there is no place to snake your hand up so I just kept going slowly and balancing it. I hit it after 2 or 3 tries and immediately thanked God, literally. 11) After this the rest of the rest is easy to install in the reverse. 12) Reconnect negative battery terminal. 13) The Parking Light switch was down and I didn't realize it so I couldn't figure out why those lights were on no matter what I did to the stalks on the steering column. After turning it off and turning on the ignition all was well. I haven't driven the car around yet since it's cold and I wanted to get this done while all of it was fresh in my mind. The one pic I thought to take was of the bending of the gauge face plate. http://legacygt.com/forums/picture.php?albumid=2389&pictureid=10956 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
I3eXa Posted November 23, 2015 Share Posted November 23, 2015 Kinda ghetto eh? Should have just bought an older car without TPMS Sent from somewhere in Potatoland Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
solidxsnake Posted November 23, 2015 Share Posted November 23, 2015 Any reason you couldn't pull the PCB out and remove the LED entirely? I haven't pulled the gauge cluster out of this car, so I don't know what it looks like. Also, I caved and bought a TPMS reset tool so I can keep all sensors working with my summer/winter wheels =_= Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bhavedikian Posted November 23, 2015 Author Share Posted November 23, 2015 LMAO...very helpful, thank you. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bhavedikian Posted November 23, 2015 Author Share Posted November 23, 2015 Solidxsnake, I was going to but you have to pull the needles and I didn't have the special tool to do it so I just used the tape on backside so no one can see it and it doesn't block any of the other LEDs. It's not what I wanted to do but in this case and my limited time and information available I felt it was the most efficient way to handle it. The cars I had in my 20s were done nicely because I had tons of time to do things properly. These days I'm happy to have any time at all to touch my car. Everything is always working on the house, watching my daughter or something else of importance to bring in a little extra cash. Anyway, if the proper needle popping tool is out there then someday I'll get it and then do things the right way but for now it works well and no one can tell. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
solidxsnake Posted November 23, 2015 Share Posted November 23, 2015 Solidxsnake, I was going to but you have to pull the needles and I didn't have the special tool to do it so I just used the tape on backside so no one can see it and it doesn't block any of the other LEDs. It's not what I wanted to do but in this case and my limited time and information available I felt it was the most efficient way to handle it. The cars I had in my 20s were done nicely because I had tons of time to do things properly. These days I'm happy to have any time at all to touch my car. Everything is always working on the house, watching my daughter or something else of importance to bring in a little extra cash. Anyway, if the proper needle popping tool is out there then someday I'll get it and then do things the right way but for now it works well and no one can tell. I see. I was wondering how the PCB was mounted in the gauge cluster. In all the other cars I've played with, the PCB is mounted to the back of the plastic (meaning that to remove it, you don't need to remove the needles, just the PCB itself from the backside). Was curious if that was possible with the LGT gauge cluster. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bhavedikian Posted November 23, 2015 Author Share Posted November 23, 2015 Solidxsnake, yeah, that's what I'm used to too with it being screwed down. This one actually was loose and only the gauges stopped the board from coming out so that's why it moves around a bit. I never touched the gauge cluster in my B5 S4 because they're stupid expensive, have a ton integrated into them and only certain build dates and years can use certain ones from all of the B5 S4 ones out there. The only thing I did was add chrome rings to the outside of the gauges themselves and then a real carbon fiber cluster cover for all around the gauges. It wasn't lame faux carbon fiber either because that's lame. It was a PITA because the clear shield doesn't separate so I had to feed those items through the gauge openings. It was so bad. The gauges themselves I left alone as I had said plus there was no reason to change them because I really liked the setup. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
heiche Posted November 23, 2015 Share Posted November 23, 2015 This might have nothing to do with an LGT but on some cars you can use a fork from your kitchen. Slide it under the hub, thumb lightly over the hub so it won't go flying, then pull straight up. BtSsm - Android app/Bluetooth adapter. LV, logging, gauges and more. For 05-14 Legacy (GT, 2.5, 3.0, 3.6), 02-14 WRX, 04-14 STi, 04-14 FXT, 05-09 OBXT Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bhavedikian Posted November 23, 2015 Author Share Posted November 23, 2015 Heiche, good idea, not sure if it needs to be a special design or not. With how my luck has been lately when modifying my car I'm going to have to let someone else venture and try that trick. Eventually I'll get the walkthrough up on getting your sweet app up on my Nav screen from my phone and the RCAs in the armrest compartment. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Max Capacity Posted November 24, 2015 Share Posted November 24, 2015 Just put a piece of black electrical tape over the light on the plastic face, much easier. I'll be doing that again Sunday when I put the snow tires on. 305,600miles 5/2012 ej257 short block, 8/2011 installed VF52 turbo, @20.8psi, 280whp, 300ftlbs. (SOLD). CHECK your oil, these cars use it. Engine Build - Click Here Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bhavedikian Posted November 24, 2015 Author Share Posted November 24, 2015 Max Capacity, the process did suck so that would be 100x easier but I just wanted to have it covered cleanly so I thought I would see if I could cover the LED or pull the bulb if there was one. It turned out to be nice that I could bend it up and put the tape on the underside for my efforts. That also saves me from explaining to my wife and others why I had tape on the clear plastic. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Max Capacity Posted November 24, 2015 Share Posted November 24, 2015 I have a picture on here somewhere of the black tape. I'll have to see if the guy I bought the snow tires from will reset the TPMS for that set OEM wheels. But then I have to have it reset when I put the summer set on...the tape is so much easier. 305,600miles 5/2012 ej257 short block, 8/2011 installed VF52 turbo, @20.8psi, 280whp, 300ftlbs. (SOLD). CHECK your oil, these cars use it. Engine Build - Click Here Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bhavedikian Posted November 24, 2015 Author Share Posted November 24, 2015 Max Capacity, yeah, I've read about a lot people annoyed with the system and with other cars they own that have it. That is the reason why I decided to cover it. I'm not going to keep replacing expensive sensors for something I don't use or having to reset them. I have no more worries now and just check my tires from time to time or when the weather changes a good bit like it has now. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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