Lights in Gauges

I have a 1980 KZ 1000 with zero illumination in the gauges at night. I figured taking off the clusters and replacing the bulbs was an easy job. HOWEVER, I'm finding one screw and bolt leads to another mystery. I'm assuming the wires going into the back of the gauges are for the lights, but prying the plugs from the rear of the cluster doesn't seem right as they really don't want to come out. Am I missing something here? How do I properly skin this cat and get lights in the gauge clusters at night? Thanks.

On mine, the speedo and tach have the lights inside them. You have to take the shells off the back to get at them. I think on the tach, you have to disconnect the cable to get the shell off. I remember that it's a royal pain in the butt to change the bulbs.

On my old KZ650, you remove the outer shell for the bottom half and pry out the little rubber bit that has the wires leading to it. It was a little hard to get it out but persistence paid off. Just be careful cause that rubber thing itself is the bulb socket. The bulb itself was the biggest pain to get out. You have to push the bulb in and turn it to get it out. Reverse for assembly.

Thanks for the help... Guess it's just gonna take more resolve in the "prying". I felt as if I was doing something that wasn't standard because I thought I was mutilating the rubber plugs... I appreciate the rapid response to my question.

Just keep at it. I had all my lights out before too and replacing ALL of them was a horrific pain, but worth it!

BTW: you may want to check you battery and charging system. These small bulbs pop quickly at even a small amount of overvoltage (ask me how I found that out.....)

You might consider going with the LED bulbs as a replacement for the standard incandescent type. The LED's will last longer though the initial cost may be higher.

Several websites offer LED instrument bulbs so a little search with Google is next

Am I wrong in assuming that the top does not come off by unscrewing the round thumb nut at the key and lifting it off like the earlier Z1 and KZ models.

z1kzonly wrote:

Am I wrong in assuming that the top does not come off by unscrewing the round thumb nut at the key and lifting it off like the earlier Z1 and KZ models.

On mine, that will let you take off the instrument cluster bezel and get at the little bulbs for oil, HI beam, brake light, neutral.