Porsche Enthusiasts Club Forum

Your rugby balls that is.

I found I have a couple of niggles, this weekend is the first time I have actually filled the fuel tank to the brim only to find the my fuel gauge only reads 3/4 full. I had also noticed over the last couple of weeks my voltmeter had dropped to just above 12v and fluctuating. After googling my fuel gauge issue I tried this little tip of removing the instrument cluster and cleaning what are described as the rugby balls, there's four in total and in the picture below you can see I have removed one.



To remove the rugby balls undo the 7mm nut and carefully use a flat blade screwdriver to lever them up, once out clean the brass pins. The post I read says to clean them with metal polish but I used some micro mesh ( which is really fine wet and dry) you can see the difference



I cleaned all four of these up and also cleaned the legs on the removable resistor which straddles the voltmeter plus I took the opportunity to fit led bulbs to the cluster and one that lights the window vent symbol, another plus was until today I had never actually bothered to figure out where the trip meter reset was but when I found the switch was adrift behind the vents I now have a working trip meter also.

So after a few hours fettling I now have a fuel gauge that reads full, a voltmeter that reads approx 13.8v and is steady (the best its ever been), led illumination, and a working trip meter and a big grin

Good tip. My fuel gauge, temp gauge and volt meter are all a bit iffy. I'll give this a try when I'm a little less reliant on the car.

Just did this today. Not driven anywhere yet but it's already sorted out the volt meter which is reading a healthy 13volts plus.

Hopefully it'll sort out my wayward temp and fuel gauges too.

top tip....did it as well this afternoon as the sun was shining , only took half an hour.
Didnt sort my fuel gauge out , still reading 3/4 when full so looks like the sender , but the other gauges now steady as a rock, super.
What sort of LED bulbs do you use for the dash? Do they increase illumination noticeably or is it a case of how good the reflective stuff is on the car, the main factor in brightness ?

So I gave my balls a clean today and I'm hoping they have improved the oil pressure gauge and temp gauge but won't know until tomorrow morning when I drive to work. But there is one issue you might be able to help with and that s my odometer, it dos'nt work full stop and when I got the car there was no trip reset button so I have fitted one of those and it made no difference.so I thought I would sort that today when I took the dash out ,only to find there is nothing behind the reset button for it to push. What I did find was a loose switch of some sort floating around behind the dash , is this anything to do with the reset ?,

That's the reset switch

As you can see its broke, does it go in front or behind the bracket ?

It's broke on the back isn't it? That's one of the locating pegs you can see and it sits at a slight angle in the left hand couple of holes. On the other side is a black round flush button onto which the rest button/plunger or what ever you want to call it sits.

Ah ok I see, are these available anywhere ? Not that it's gonna make much difference as the odometer
Dos'nt work at all , I might have to take it apart at the weekend

switch is available new

944 641 321 00 £30.65 Inc Vat