I guess I should mention that I did take the (now) clear lens off, and clean all the dust off of it and the gauges, since the bronco I got my "new" cluster from had been parked facing almost due west, with the driver door glass down, for about 2 years. Lots of rain blowing in from the south, along with lots of sunlight, made the lens look rather nasty. A good soaking in warm soapy water loosened up the black crud that covered a good portion of the lens, and allowed it to clean up without scratching.
The fuel/oil/temp gauges look kinda funny when they get near the middle of their sweep range, as the bottom part of the needles are still bright orange, like they always were.....

 

ctubutis - That's what I thought.

RW - Yep, am expecting lots of light once I clean and install new bulbs. But, what bezels do you need? You saw what I have extra - the Custom black w/a cutup radio bezel. And, I picked up a better set just like those but not cut up yesterday that I'm thinking of using since my woodgrain is peeling. But, what do you need?

All - No comment on the odo? Want to use the new cluster w/tach and trip, but want the odo to be accurate. Haven't pulled it apart to see, but any guidance on swapping odo or resetting?

Also, I checked the speedo yesterday w/a stop watch two times across 5 miles each time. At an indicated 60 the truck is doing 60.48 in spite of having gone from the stock 215'sR75's to 30x9.5's. Kinda hard to believe, but apparently it was showing much higher than actual before.

 

The odo stuff was talked about here not too long ago. Didn't want to appear to be an
aloof jerk or anything but I really have only 2 minutes or so before I have to go so....

Use The Search, Luke!

 

LOL Thanks, Yoda. Should have done that before asking.

 

Gary, there was a recent thread about reseting the odo. Shouldn't be more than 1-2 pages back. Last post was less than a week ago. Here: https://www.ford-trucks.com/forums/9...eedometer.html
I can't help on this, as I just elected to leave mine be. It was only about 15K higher (30K rather than 15K) and my truck has seen well over 300K anyhow.

As for the bezels, what I want are the base type, but I want the 85/86 model. They are gray painted in the mesh, as well as allow for the DIN type radio without any need to cut the center, since 85/86 used DIN style radios, even for the base radio.
I can make an earlier cluster bezel work easily, but I really need the radio bezel from an 85/86. Heck, I don't even need factory A/C vents in the cluster bezel, as I have add-on vents I can rob from my factory bezel. That would only take a bit more work than modding factory A/C vents to work with my non-factory A/C ducts.

By the way, did you see the post where someone had found a good base radio bezel, with clock cutouts, for the older 2 **** radio? I think they was looking to sell.

 

I will post up a picture as soon as I can my good sir

 

Thanks, kind sir.

 

RW - No, I didn't see that. But, is it that much better than mod'ing what I have?

And, I'll read the thread on odo replacement. Thanks, good sir. (Gee, it is getting deep in here, and I have my good socks on.)

 

You could likely mod the one you have fairly easily. It's just a bit rare to see a base trim truck, with a factory clock. It was optional, but not very common. The clock, cruise, and intermittant wipers were seldom added to a base trim, they were typically added as part of a trim "upgrade" package.

 

While I did a LOT of other things... the best thing i've done today is do this!



I put on my F-150 Emblem today!

 

Here you go. They are just cell phone pics because I forgot my camera at the g/f's house. They came out half decent though.

The cd player doesn't fit "inside" the factory bezel, but it works well enough. I think you can take the surround off of the cd player though so it fits better.

This one didn't come out as well.

 

Wow, those would be perfect. I now have a good idea what it's going to look like, as my dash (and nearly everything else in/on the truck) is red.
Looks like I'm gonna pick up a non-A/C 82 cluster bezel and 80/81 "custom" radio bezel that's been cut to fit a DIN radio from Gary. The non-A/C bezel is actually what I prefer, since my truck has dealer added A/C and the factory vents don't quite fit my ducts.
I'm prolly gonna go with a slightly lighter shade of gray, or just stick with the black. Gotta fill that gap left from the factory radio first. Shouldn't be much of an issue, since I'll have some plastic available from cutting out the A/C vent holes.....
Then I can swap on my "Ranger" badge.....
Guess this means I'll have to address the (badly faded) woodgrain in that cruise horn bar I recently swapped in as well. Along with replacing the dash pad, and restoring the door panels. Then a seat, and the interior will be about done.

 

Picked up a pair of wheels today...

@ GOODWILL!!!

Who'd-a-thunk-it


Gonna have to find 2 more and run a set of 1.5" spacers but i'll still have less in them then a set of new wheels. The spacers will move them to 4.8" of Backspacing on a 17x8" wheel.

 

I look forward to seeing what the truck looks like with tires on it.

 

I'm seriously considering replacing my woodgrained instrument and radio bezels with the black base-level trim I've picked up. At least until I can figure out how to replace the woodgrain. But, RW brings up a problem I have as well - the woodgrained cruise horn bar.

Any suggestions on that? I guess even if I did paint it black I could cover that if I do figure out how to do the bezels. But, what did a base model have when equipped with cruise?