Instrument binnacle re-trim

I had my dash redone and that binnacle done at the same time. The real challenge is getting a match. Cost isn't much for the leather work; R&R is the lions share of the cost. I could check what it cost but it wouldn't help you much since they R&R my entire dash.

 

As I recall, the leather work for both was about $1700. But, he was handed a dash and binnacle that was already removed.

 

Definitely possible per the workshop manual. Just need to take off the steering wheel and the upper cowling. There was a thread on this recently actrually, and the OP said that he didn't even need to remove the steering wheel.

From M2.19 in the WSM:

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You don't need to remove the steering wheel at all in order to remove the instrument cluster. I'm not sure why the manual says to do so but I managed to easily remove it. If all you need to do is remove the instrument cluster, then this is how I did it:

1) Adjust the steering wheel all the way down
2) Remove the bottom cover of the steering wheel column (2 phillipsscrews up front and one small nut in the middle, you access all of them from the bottom of the column
3) After removing the bottom of the column cover (it only "clips" to the top of the cover), you will see 2 phillips screws that are perpendicular to the floor of the car. You can see them more clearly after flipping the top of the steering column cover upwards (the top of the steering wheel column is attached to the gauge cluster by the leather.
4) Once the 2 screws are removed, the gauge cluster is free. I popped the left side toward me, then the right until it came free enough to easily unplug it from the dashboard.

 

That is correct.
No need to remove the steering wheel.
I did it too. Not a difficult task.

 

Good luck Jonny with the paintwork and your road trip

 

That's great! Leather work isn't too bad so long as you don't get bogged down in taking apart the entire dash.