Directions on Putting a Digital Dash in a GLH-S
or "Why the hell would I want to do that???"
written by Jeff Barnett

My latest folly has been installing a digital dash from an 87 Lebaron into my GLH-S. Neil Emiro accomplished this several years ago in his 86 GLH-S, and I always thought it was a neat project. Judging by the response I received when I mentioned this on the Shelby Dodge Mailing List, a lot of other people do also. The big advantage of this conversion to me is that there is no real limiter on the digital speedometer; it goes all the way to 255 MPH. Even with the overlay sticker, my stock 85 MPH speedometer just doesn't cut it for high speed excursions.


I obtained the digital dash for nothing from a co-worker, and also grabbed another analog stock cluster. I removed all of the gauges from the stock cluster housing, and trimmed it so that the digital circuit boards would fit in it. I soon realized that the circuit boards would not fit in the stock dash opening. Neil Emiro told me that he had cut the dash on his GLH-S to accept the boards. Wanting to avoid this, I took my Dremel and trimmed the circuit boards to the very edges of the printed lines on the board. While still snug, it gave me the clearance I needed to fit it in the dash. I then took the wiring connectors from the digital dash and soldered them inside of the pins which plug into the stock wiring harness of the car. The digital cluster is now a drop-in installation in the car, with the exception of 3 wires that aren't present in the original cluster. I haven't decided if I like it or not yet, but it is definitely different. I can easily switch back to the stock cluster if I decide I don't like it.



A side view of the 'finished' digital dash cluster. You can see that I took off a little extra plastic in places, but hey, this was a prototype!



A front view of the cluster. I cut the black tabs seen at the top off of the L-body trim piece. I probably could have just cut off a strip including the tabs and just had one piece to worry about. Aligning these tabs (heating and bending) so that the black trim piece and lens would fit correctly was one of the most frustrating steps of the whole project.


A bottom view of the right hand side of the cluster. You can see the bracket I fabricated to mount the digital circuit boards into the analog L-body cluster.


The rear of the finished cluster, showing the windows I cut out to access the wiring connectors on the digital boards. The wires from these connectors are soldered INSIDE of the pins that plug into the car wiring.

The three new wires that I had to add are as follows: full-time 12V for trip computer memory, speed-distance signal, and a 'marker feed' so the digital display would dim properly. I tapped into the marker feed behind the radio (that yellow/black wire for the radio digital display dimming). The other two wires are available at the logic module.


The L-body connectors




Digital Dash Connectors