So, the clock went out in my Tacoma in the year 2000, 5-6 years after I bought it. It would sometimes fade back in for a week or two, but eventually it was gone for good. Recently (15 years later, lol) I decided that I was annoyed enough to do something about it. I looked around and, lo and behold, there are tons of little screens that purport to do exactly what I want! After finding some likely candidates, I searched around to see if anyone had replaced their clock with something better. I found southern01taco, and I took inspiration from his post on Tacoma World (thanks man!!!).
Here is a video of original clock and the issue it had. Many of you, I'm sure, are familiar with the 'smack it till it works' Toyota clock. Problem with all the smackin' is that it eventually led many of us down a road to a cracked faceplate or dislodged clock.
What you'll need
New Screen A new clock/temp/voltage unit (This is the exact one I bought, green, from RioRand). EDIT: This clock keeps terrible time (moves forward 1 hour for every 6). I'm contacting the seller about the issue now. EDIT 2 - Amazon refunded my money, the seller basically told me tough-titties. The voltmeter and temp gauge work and have been working for ages, so I guess it's worth it.
Here is another seller, DROK, with Green, Blue, Red, Yellow, and White. Can't vouch for it personally, but it has the same pictures, measurements, and description. My guess is they're all coming from the same factory and these are different Amazon sellers. DROK is $5 more, go figure. Tools (you probably have all this already) Dikes (hehe) Flathead Large Phillips Very small Phillips 10mm socket 3/16 bit 1/4 bit Soldering Iron Solder Hot glue gun or silicone Superglue Drill Optional tools: Impact driver (because they're awesome) Fine needlenose
Videos of the final product (cause I know you're impatient)
Results:Daytime ▲
Getting Started
This is the ticket..
Note: you can click on all these images for a full-resolution view. First step was to find the new readout. I wanted temperature in Fahrenheit, a clock, and voltage (should be a given since it's hooked up directly to the battery). Turns out this isn't super easy to find because of my North American °F requirement. There are TONS of these out there, but 99% are in Celsius. The cheapest one in Fahrenheit I found was this one. It only had one review, and it was negative, but I took a chance and thus far I'm glad I did. Once the readout was in the mail, I needed to figure out how to take the truck apart.
Remove us!
Step 1. First you need to pull the plastic piece below the steering wheel. It has 4x 10mm bolts and one Phillips screw.Remove those bolts (with optional impact driver (because it's awesome)) and gently tug on it, it'll fall right off and catch on the e-brake (assuming you have it engaged).
Give 'er a little tug-a-roo
After that's loose, gently tug on the bottom of the piece holding the clock and ignition, about in the middle. It'll pop right off. Disconnect the clock and, if you have it, the leads to the light around the ignition.
Click to embiggerate
Once you have it off, you'll see the labeling of the leads on the outside. You'll need these labels later, no need to take note now however - I'll walk you through it when we get there.
pull RED OUT gently, pull BLUE UP,
then SLIIIDE GREEN back to the left
When removing the clock face from the Toyota housing, be very careful, those little tabs are fragile and will break. I strongly recommend that you start on the left side when looking at the clock face-on. The right side has some plastic bracing (Exhibit A, below) that goes along the inside edge. Once you have the left side up you can pull the plastic face gently back towards the left side and it'll pop out from the tabs on the right w/o you having to spread them and risk snapping them off.
Putting the new unit together
Exhibit A
(the little braces I'm talkin' bout)
Take a big note, I installed my clock a bit to far to the right and a bit too high for my liking. I also didn't allow space for the bracing I've been jabbering about (see Exhibit A). I ended up snipping my bracing off with the dikes (note I used a precision set like those listed in the optional equipment above. You might be able to get away with regular dikes or a clean-cut). On the right >> is a pic of the side bracing that I ended up removing to make space for the new screen. If you don't want to snip that bracing, which puts you at risk for cracking the face plate on plastic this old, you will need to very gently bend the leads for power, acc, etc. to the left with your thumb to make enough space for the new screen.
The old and the new
Next, pull out the buttons, rubber plungers, springs (if they haven't fallen out already), & clock (you'll need a tiny Phillips). On the left you see the old clock, face, housing, buttons, plungers, springs and the new unit as it came from the factory.
OMG - that's a perfect fit! OMG!
The first thing I checked was the spacing on the buttons. I'd eyeballed it online and tried to imagine some measurements from the listing but, in truth, I was rolling the dice on fit/finish for the buttons. You can imagine I squealed like a little girl who just got a pony when I saw that the buttons fit the existing holes EX-frigging-ZACT-frigging-LY!
Use a flat head screwdriver
to snap off the catches
Next step is to get the new readout screen out of the housing they supplied it with. This is very simple, just take a flat head screwdriver and crack the tabs back a bit and the screen will just slide right out. You can discard this housing and tinted screen.
Verifying what's up and down
(temp on the left...)
Voila'! She's going to fit boys!
Whelp, looking at a rectangle only marked with 88:88 I realized that I didn't know which way was up. So, what I did was tightly wrap the wires (Green to B (+), Black to E (-) and Red to ACC (+)) around the leads from the Toyota housing making sure that they didn't touch (in fact I used a piece of cardboard between the hot and ground to make sure I didn't short) and plug it into the truck. Turn the key to ACC and you should see it light up. Turns out the temp probe on my unit is on the left side, connection wires on the right, just like the internetz showed!
Keepin' the solder neat
graphic to help you associate the
leads with the corresponding labels
Next thing was to solder the leads. I used my trusty scrap of cardboard to make sure the solder stayed where I wanted it to; the leads on the Toyota housing are pretty tight so you want to make sure you don't short anything. Green to B (+), Black to E (-) and Red to ACC (+).
pilot hole
1/4 for temp probe
Before positioning the clock I needed to punch a hole for the temp probe. I used a small bit to make a pilot hole and then a 1/4 to make the hole for the lead. Note that when drilling plastic like this you should always drill a pilot hole. Here is my personal super-secret 'Dear Heavens I Can't Believe He's Telling Y'all This Trick' trick: use the final diameter bit but use the drill in REVERSE. Using the drill forward will gouge out hunks of plastic and, worst case scenario, it'll cause the plastic to split. Using the drill in reverse will melt the hole through and it will be very accurate and round. P.S. - no need to thank me, uncracked old-a** Toyota plastic you can't get from the manufacturer anymore is reward enough.
lining up the clock
with the face plate
My final position. You should put
it ~1-2mm to the left and down
Up next was positioning the clock so that it will show through the little window. Note that if you get it off a little bit, the edges of the window will distort the display a bit (you can see this in the first few seconds at the top of the display). The location I choose was a few millimeters away from perfect but I'd already hot-glued it and I didn't want to risk ripping any wires from the back of the pcb just to satisfy my ocd. For y'all, I'd recommend that you set the clock down 1-2 mm from where mine is set and to the left ~2mm (click the pics to zoom in!). Note that to move it any more leftward you'll need to CAREFULLY bend the leads with your thumb. I've already bent he leads in my setup a bit but they could have been bent farther (I also put a nip of black tape over them - that's why you're not seeing them in the pics). Remember that I had to use dikes to snip the plastic bracing because I put my screen too far to the right (Exhibit A above). I think if you set this up where those braces will fit w/o being removed you'll be good to go (but experiment for yourself it may be too tight if you don't snip out the bracing). I'd hazard that you could just snip the Toyota housing leads shorter and put the new screen on top (being sure to insulate with electricians tape and a good dob of hot-glue). If anyone does this, PLEASE let me know how it turns out. Pictures are always good!
snipped the left screw hole off
secured with a small blob of hot-glue
secure above the brace & to the right of the screw hole
Now we need to set up the buttons. This took some time but I'm pretty sure I can guide you to an easy win on this bit. Note that I clipped off the screw post (on the Toyota housing) in my setup but I don't think you'll need to do that if you snip the screw-hole off the button board like I show. Be careful when you're snipping that board, you DO NOT want to cut any metal bits, just cut the green board that has no metal or connections. You can get pretty close to the M on the front (click on the pic), but be 1000% sure to check front and back before you cut. The dikes dominated snipping that extra bit of, whatever it is, silicon, right? Positioning wise, you'll want to set it up exactly where I have mine because mine is friggin' perfect; just to the right of the screw-hole and just slightly above the horizontal bracing you see there. Note, you don't want to go batpoop crazy with hot-glue right now, just get it solid but where you can pop the button board back off and re-position. You're about to check button action and usefulness and those checks aren't useful if you've smeg'd the buttons with so much glue you'll need a mule team to pry them off the housing.
showing the final location
and what I snipped off
dummy on the left glued on,
two on the right live buttons,
plungers slightly shortened
Up next, buttons! For this step, you'll need a bit of superglue.
shorten the plunger
leave ~1-2mm of relief
First, make the third button (00) a dummy, just lay a thin line of superglue around the square on the faceplate and stick the button there (not too thin, however, b/c some Dink is bound to try to mash that button to see what it does and you don't want the glue letting go and the little button dropping down into the clock housing to rattle around until you've no choice but to take the dash apart to retrieve it). The next two, you'll just want to snip off a bit of the plunger stick, but not all of it (see pics). Go slowly, removing a little bit at a time until you have the amount of relief I'm showing here (srsly, look at the pics). It's actually a really good idea to clip this all together a few times and test the click-ability of the buttons so you don't cut too much or too little. Also, remember that you have a Mulligan with the 3rd plunger if you get too craizazy with the snippers. Testing this for working will entail you making sure that the buttons are
a.) flush with the face of the clock (meaning the plungers are long enough)
b.) they make the new buttons 'click' (the plungers are long enough)
c.) they allow the new buttons to come back out (they're not too long) <- important
Once it's working (srsly, test it a bunch), a dab of superglue in the button hole to anchor the plunger, click it all together and you're all set! Note: If you get go snipper crazy AND waste your Mulligan you're still in luck. You just need something (anything really) to stick in the button hole to make the plunger stick out enough.
Time to install!
Temp working (it's hot as heck here)
Battery -12 is good when it's off,
14 is good when it's running
The install is pretty simple; you want to reverse the steps you took to get the clock out to get the unit back into the dash.
1.) Clip the Toyota lead into the housing. 2.) Two Phillips screws to anchor it to the trim piece. Go ahead and test it now (I know you want to). 3.) Bolt/screw the trim piece under the steering column back on. Now you've just got the temperature probe hanging down, about as useful as a pogo stick in quicksand.
After you're done admiring your handiwork, it's time to wonder how you're going to get a proper temperature. You don't want the probe in the car, cause that's dumb, you know the temp in the car (you're bathing in it!). You want the temp outside the truck - the temp of the air.
Initially I put the termocouple under the truck and the temp readings were crap. I ended up pulling it back up and routed it through the firewall through a grommit, around the drivers side of the engine compartment, down through the lights area and taped it in the front bumper surrounded by foam to insulate/protect it a bit. The temp reading are really good unless the truck is sitting/idling in the heat. The engine heat will affect it then but it'll cool right down once you start rolling again. The reason I don't have any pictures is because the initial pics were of the under truck mount that sucked. Oh, I had to use a Cat5 cable to make the thermocouple longer so it would reach. It's simple enough there are only a few lines in the thermocouple. Be sure you solder it and use heat-shrink wrap for the joins i the wire or it'll eventually fail and then you're back under the hood trying to figure out why...
That's it! Comment if you liked this and note that if you click any of those links to Amazon I get a few pennies for every dollar you spend. I have 2 kids and a mortgage and I'm driving a 20 year old truck so, if you're planning on buying a few lbs of caviar, do it from this link!
