I did this a month ago and am now getting around to uploading pictures and sharing my adventure retro fitting V70R/S60R/XC90 R-Design gauges to my 2005 XC90. First I need to say it was pretty fun and fairly simple. The only real modification required is running the dash led lights to a power source.
Steps:
Step 1 – Acquire used V70R/S60R/XC90 R-Design gauges:
I picked these up off eBay for just over $100. Don’t worry if they don’t work, you won’t even use the circuit board.
Step 2 – Pull out your gauge cluster. Here is a video from ClusterRepair on how to do just that! Thanks ClusterRepair:
Step 3 – Gently pull tabs off black surround on each of your gauge clusters. This will remove the thick black surround and clear plastic cover. Take caution to unhook the LED gauge lights connector from the R cluster back plate:
Step 4 – Use painters tape to mark where the needles are at rest. Use a plastic bone tool/fork or fingers if your VERY careful and pry the needles up. Here is the factory black gauges removed:
Step 6 – Use painters tape to mark where the needles are at rest. Use a plastic bone tool/fork or fingers if your VERY careful and pry the needles up. Here is the factory v70R/S60R/XC90 R-Design gauges removed:
Step 7 – Remove the clear plastic gauge plates and screws holding in the circuit boards. Here are pictures of each of the clusters with these removed:
Old
New R – Notice the lighter shade of green board and in the upper right center is the connection for the LED gauge illumination lights
Step 8 – You need to use the whole new R casing both back and front with the clear screen. Swap the older circuit board into the new R white casing. Screw it in and install the clear gauge face backings. Next carefully install the R gauges on the only board:
Step 9 – Install the black trim and clear screen:
Step 10 – Find a 12 volt source on the drivers fuse panel or you could tap one of the dash illumination lights on the back side of the light switch. I did some fine soldering and tapped one of the 3 illumination lights on the back side of the light switch. This gave me brightness control over the clusters LED lights. Here they are with the correct millage:
The whole purpose of using your old circuit board is so the computer system does not see any changes and throw any codes as well as retaining your actual millage. It also eliminates the need for the dealer to re-calibrate the cluster if you installed the needles back to where the painters tape was which is fairly pricey.
Oh, almost forgot the faces are a direct swap but the outer casing is not. Hence the reason I list using the newer white backing. The R design one is slightly slimmer than the standard gauge clusters. The boards are the exact same size.
Enjoy!