I did not remove the whole speedo. I was able to use a 90 degree o-ring pick to pop all the plastic off. Once you remove the old face the silver overlay will come off with the old face and you have to transfer it to the new face. The buttons and all that stay attached to the speedo. The needle on the speedo will reset as well once the car is turned on. If you have any other questions feel free to pm me.

 

Picture on page 16 shows the lens being taken off with the trim attached:
http://www.fes-auto.com/upload/doc/5...tion_Guide.pdf

 

Piece is not attached to the clear cover on the CM.

 

On the CM there is two screw on the bottom that hold the speedo ring in place. They are not easy to get to without taking the center stack pieces apart and I am trying to avoid that.

 

On the CM there is two screw on the bottom that hold the speedo ring in place. They are not easy to get to without taking the center stack pieces apart and I am trying to avoid that. I can get the clips with the o ring pick but I still have to access these two screws.

 

Done. I am guessing the CM is different than the standard 2nd gen. You have to take the 2 side pieces that run along the center stack off. They pull off to the side me are held by pressure clips. This will give you access to the two screws hold the speedo trim ring that hold the face on. After you remove the 2 screws you will still not be able to completely remove the trim piece but it gives you enough room to remove the gauge face from the speedo. The black trim piece that is attached to the gauge face was a pit of a pain and I noticed that a few of the little stubs had the tips broken off after I removed the gauge face. I took the extra measure to put a tiny drop of hot glue on each of the stubs to make sure it stayed on. I then was able to wiggle the new gauge face in place. All in all not too bad but hopefully this will help any CM owners that want to do this mod.

 

Some pics.

 

So you went from black to silver!?! I am trying to go the other way

I am pretty spooked about removing the needles and getting them back on without destroying some internals in the Tach or Speedo.

I tried getting the needle off a junkyard tach and I could tell I destroyed the functionality of the tach. It had rough spots in its rotation when I put it back together.

 

Silver to white. I had these gauges on my last mini. Needles came off pretty easy but you do have to put a little pressure. I use my finger and gently squeeze while pushing on the gauge face. As you squeeze, push and you will it raise slowly.

 

WHITE, no I get it, that makes perfect sense.

Since you just used your fingers to pull straight the needles off. What were you squeezing? Do you mean grabbing the needles firmly? No tools to pry them up(perpendicular to the gauge face) and off?

I really want to go black with mine. I would have purchased a JCW and already had the black faces but I need an automatic to drive since I have a bum leg given to me by a Chinese Anti-Personnel Mine and MINI did not make an Automatic JCW at the time.

BTW, how did that ECU Tune work out?

 

If you want to send me your email address, I just took a short video to describe what I did. I love my tune from NM. They have put the tune on hold for the autos since the tyranny controller does not like the additional power and dumps some of the boost. In my opinion, you hear it more than you feel it. The tune made a HUGE difference in the way the car feels. I have the All4 so I needed the extra power.

 

Also I noticed that the font size, maybe font changed on the Outmotoring faceplates when the 80mph moved to the center. In my opinion, this does change the look of the gauge face. The Outmotoring site only shows the gauge faces when the 70mph was in the center. I had these on my R53, and prefer the look of the ones I had previously. If you look at the photos I posted and the ones on their site, you can see the difference. I have reached out to Aaron from Outmotoring to clarify. I am guessing the font got smaller since one speedo went up to 140 and not they go up to 160. I prefer the look of the 140...

 

Trying to decide between the two ... Was thinking about the grey to offset my black interior a bit. Does anyone have pictures of either? The site shows the black, but I was wondering about the grey. Thanks.

 

Found this video of how to remove the tach needle.