My car's digital dash looks like this in the daytime:


The speedometer is very hard to read, and the center gauges seem to be "burned-in" in some areas.

To top it all off, the entire cluster goes dim after the car has been running for about 20-30 minutes. I can still see the gauges running if I look hard enough, but it's like the lights have just shut off.

Is this something I can repair myself, or should I just get a refurbished cluster?

 

https://batee.com/pages/84-89-cluster-service

 

The cluster has a film over the glass pieces. It's pretty simple to get the new film and replace it. The sun bleaches the film after a while. batee.com sells all the parts you're need as well as the how to videos to do the job. Do yourself a favor and replace all the light bulbs in the cluster with either xion or led bulbs. Halogen bulbs are so hot they burn the circuit boards. It's not a matter of if they will burn but when the damage will happen.

The second problem I haven't experienced. There is a light sensor that can dim the cluster and go bad. When the headlights are turned on the cluster dims a significant amount so I could be the light switch. The lights could be going bad but I doubt that.

 

I'm a big time DIY'er, but I'd send that cluster batee for a refurb. It needs all the polarizing film replaced, the bulbs, and probably the 12 pin interconnect if you want it to be reliable. Yes, it can be done using his videos, but it's really easy to end up with more problems than you started with.

 

My cluster was very flaky when I bought my 85 from a friend. It eventually stopped working altogether. It’s been working flawlessly since I got it back from batee. They have some kits for DIYers that can have circuit board and IC skills. Since I’m not that guy...batee was the right choice for me. Best of luck.

 

I agree with all of the above. Batee.com is hands down the best place to perform anything related to the digital dash if you are not comfortable yourself.

For my 86, I have used their videos to replace the bulbs, solder in a new board connector and also replace the polarizing films (which is your discoloration problem). The job is not overly difficult if you are comfortable being gentle in disassembling things, have the ability to de-solder and re-solder joints, and (and this is probably the most important) have the ability to get the new polarizing films down without getting any kind of bubble under them. That last one for me is tricky as I seem to be able to rebuild just about anything, but if you ask me to put a screen protector on a cell phone, I have a really hard time .

During my polarizing film install, I managed to get one bubble under the first film I did. The second and third went just fine as I realized how to do the EXACT procedure in his videos. Bryan at Batee was gracious enough to send me a replacement free. Then, after re-assembly, the center panel was all wonky. It worked prior to the film replacement, so I knew it was something I did. Bryan took the time to help advise me on what to check in the car (and the information on his site is great as well). After a few days I threw in the towel and sent him the cluster for repair. Turned out my whole issue was that I did not trim the film quite close enough to the edge of that one panel and it was causing the display contacts to not align correctly. Rookie mistake.

I seemed to have made it through to the other side, but looking back, I probably would have sent him the console to refresh and be done with it.

Best of luck!