y'know, I'd love to have this but man I don't want to eveen think about tearing all that crap down.

Kudo to you for doing that. I've always wondered why they, and I mean all of the theys didn't make that clear overlay of the cluster to be a snapout design so you could get at the guages and change bulbs etc. To me that's a no brainer in design to manufacture. Must be a reason for it though.