My “How To” install a F-150 Cluster w/Tach into an Aero

[93nighthawk]

First off, this is just a guide, it worked for my ‘97 Ford Aerostar XLT AWD, but it might not work for other years/models. I am not responsible if your van goes up in flames or blows up. Now that the legal is over with, lets get to the fun part. Ever sense I have owned an Aerostar, I have wanted to put a factory F-series cluster w/ Tach in my Aero. I was getting tired of looking at this: And wanted to look at this: I knew it was possible because they did look very similar and should easily fit, the hard parts were figuring out the wiring and locating a F-series cluster w/ tach that they did not want an arm and a leg for. Well after years of biding my time, and checking the you-pull-it yards for one w/ tach (it seems like I could only find ones without, the ones with were already snatched,) until about two weeks ago, I found one out of a 1995 F-150, for the amazing price of $12.00. () I had been watching e-bay for a while and could never find one for under $100 (yeah, way too much for this project.) On a side note, when you pull the cluster, be sure to just cut the wiring and take it with you, it will save some frustration and give you some extra connectors, just in case. On to the second part, the wiring. Sense I had the cluster, I needed to sit down and figure out the wiring differences and see how to match them up so they would work. I knew from the get-go that this would not be a plug and play. I pulled out the wiring diagram I saved from a couple years ago for a 1996 F-150 cluster and compared the wire colors between the cluster and the diagram, and they were the same. Whew, one issue down, more to go. Second, I pulled out my ‘97 Ford Factory Aerostar wiring and vacuum book (the best $45 spent on e-bay, nothing beats factory manuals) and compared the wiring in my Aerostar to that of the cluster. After a couple sheets of scratch paper (and about 8 hours total) of checking, and double checking, I was able to figure out where I needed to move the wires so the new cluster would work. Here is my professional looking diagram that I produced. If the connector is not listed to be moved, it stays in the same spot. I was surprised about how many of the wires stayed in the same spot. Also you DO NOT want to ground spot #10. That tells the Tach if you are using a v6 or a v8, and if you do ground it your Tach will be off by a lot. Right now mine is within factory specs (200 rpm +/-). Removing your old instrument cluster: Note: before removing your instrument cluster, take note wear the fuel gauge needle is. You are using a used instrument cluster so you do not know if it works or not. Make a crude picture of where the needle is to compare when you are done installing and checking the cluster. You have to pull the your radio/ash tray bezel off first. There are two screws on either side of the ash tray that need to be removed, then it will just pull off. Then you pull the bezel for the left vent off. Put the key in the ignition, turn the key on, put the gear selector all the way to low, turn off, but leave key in. This will get the shifter out of the way but not run your battery down. Now you have access to the screws below the instrument cluster bezel, and you just need to remove those and pull (don’t forget about the two at the top of the instrument cluster. Also you will need to remove the **** for the headlight switch, otherwise the cover will not come off. There is some way to be able to remove it, but I have not found a way to do it, so mine is busted. L Now you have full access to the instrument cluster. I removed the clear plastic cover (several bolts) so I could unbolt the PRND21 from the cluster and place it to the side. This is a lot easier than tearing apart your steering column to unhook it, and you will be re-using it with the new instrument cluster. Also you will need to remove your Speedo anyway to put in the new cluster, so this eliminates one more step. Remove the remaining four bolts and carefully pull your cluster out. You will need to tilt, rotate, and mess with it to pull the plugs out of the back. I have not really found an easy way to do this. The Tach Wire: Now on the ‘97 Aerostar there is no interior Tach wire. On earlier models there was an option for an electronic instrument cluster, so there was a separate set of wires you could use. I did not have this luxury so I had to improvise. I ended up drilling a hole in the firewall and taping into the Tach signal from the service Tach wire in the engine bay. I feed the wire through and up to the instrument cluster area. I pulled the tach wire out of the new cluster clip (White/Pink) and soldered them together to keep the color codes correct. I do not know what the color code is for the earlier models Tach, so you would need to research, or just do what I did. Now you can finish re-wiring. Re-wiring: Now the cool part about this project is that sense I am using similar Ford products, the color codes are very close, and the connectors are the same. Now swapping the wires are easier than they sound. Each spot is numbered like in the pic above so you just have to squint looking at the side of the connector and place the wire there. But before you can start swapping wires, you need to take some needle nose pliers and a very small flat head screw driver and pry out the red plastic wedge that helps hold the wires in. Now this is where those extra connectors come in handy, if you break something. I did break one of the red wedges, but it will go back in two pieces and still do its job, it is breaking the plastic connectors where you can get into a world of hurt real quick. At the age they are now, they are starting to get very brittle so be careful! Anyway, once the wedges are out, you can put your mini-flat head screwdriver in and push down on the release, then gently pull the wire out of it’s socket. Then you just put the wire in it’s new location, (per the diagram above) and it just snaps in. That’s all there is to it. Just do it several more times, then you are done. Just be sure to put the wedges back in when you are done to help hold the connectors. (I had to pull everything back apart when I realized that I forgot them (Ugh!)) 　 New Instrument Cluster: If you are going to use the new speedo that came with the cluster, you can skip this step, but I personally like having a 90mph speedo compared to a F-150 80mph speedo. You are going to need to remove the clear plastic cover to get access to the gauges. You will need to pull the Tach and both the Fuel/Temp/Volt/Oil gauges out to get access to the Speedo. You DO NOT need to remove the needles, they will come out as complete assemblies that are only snapped in. Now you can pull the Speedo and put your original speedo in (that way you will have the correct Odometer reading from the PSOM and your speedo will be correct for your tires.) Snap the other gauges back in and you are ready to go to the next step. Be sure to leave the clear plastic cover off. Installation: Carefully put the new cluster into the dash, plug all three connectors in the back and just lay it in it’s spot, turn your key to the on position, with a door open, to verify that all of the trouble lights come on*, the odo shows the mileage, the Turn Signal lights work, and your gauges pop on. This is a good time to verify that your fuel gauge works. Now go ahead and start your engine to verify that the Tach, volt, temp, fuel, and oil pressure gauges work. If any of those items do not work, I would suggest swapping out your old solenoids(?) into the spots that do not work. They just unbolt from the back, but you will need to remove the needles. *Side note, the 4wd light should light up, but for some reason in it‘s current configuration, it does not. I am at a loss as to why. It might be the cluster I have or it might be that it is not grounding correctly. Also you will have 2 AMP lights on. The AMP light to your lower left will be on , this is your Door Ajar light. Farther down I tell how to correct this dilema. Now if everything goes as planned, and everything works, you can go ahead an re-install the PRND21 and then the clear plastic cover, and re-bolt the cluster into it‘s spot. The Door Ajar/Amp Light Issue: Now I like to have my gauges/lights tell me the correct info. The F-150 did not come with a Door Ajar trouble light. As I was thinking of a way to correct this issue, in case someone else drives my van and they freak out that the Amp light is on when in all actuality the Door Ajar light is on and try to do something stupid, like take it to a shop and confound them, I would fix this. I spent some time thinking and then it came to me. Why don’t I cut out the Door Ajar plate out of my instrument cluster, cut out the AMP plate out of the cluster bezel, and glue the Door Ajar plate in it’s place. I peeled the Door Ajar face off of its backing plastic. I did this by hand by carefully pealing it off. It is just glued on. Now rough cut it out so it would cover a little more than the space of the AMP plate And this is how it looks: You do have to carefully break out part of the bezel backing plate to get access to the warning plates. But a little hot glue fixes that. It is not perfect, but if you are not looking for it, you will not notice it. With everything working go ahead and put the rest of the dash apart in reverse to what is described above. And it should look like this J YouTube - ‪cluster start up‬‏ Now you can have a factory look with Tach for your Aerostar, Cheers! 　 Future addition to this project…… While fooling around with the gauge faces, I noticed that what causes the green color is some sort of green film on the back, now it can easily be scratched off with a knife or flat head screwdriver. Now this would make the light coming through white instead of green. This gives you the option of going with different colored lights to give you a different colored instrument cluster at night. Or you could use different colored film/paint to give you the desired effect. Right now I am trying to think how to give a day/night redlined area on the Tach and blue for the rest. When I do finalize and implement the plan, I will update here.

[Kruse]

Wow, you put a lot of time and engineering into this project.
I'm going to look for a cheap F-150 instrument panel and do this.
Kudos for your effort!

[KhanTyranitar]

Dude, that is awesome, I am so doing this. Thanks for the detailed write up. There might be replacement aftermarket gauge faces for the F-150.

[93nighthawk]

Originally Posted by Kruse

Wow, you put a lot of time and engineering into this project.
I'm going to look for a cheap F-150 instrument panel and do this.
Kudos for your effort!

Thank you for the Kudos Kruse!

Actually it is a pretty easy project, tearing apart and replacing things is an afternoon project even with hiccups. But the engineering into the project took at least 20 hours on my part, I didn't want to get half way through it and go woops beforehand so I took my time a triple checked everything.

Originally Posted by KhanTyranitar

Dude, that is awesome, I am so doing this. Thanks for the detailed write up. There might be replacement aftermarket gauge faces for the F-150.

There are several different suppliers on e-bay/various sites that sell Indiglo Gauges or gauge faces for this instrument cluster. I have been considering that as an option for a color change, but I have not fully decided yet.

[R-TypeEman]

This is actually a really cool project - I did it to my 92 3.0 about 8 months ago.

I chose to deal with the door ajar light by assigning it to the original "Check Engine" light, and using the new cluster's check engine light for the actual check engine warning.

My tach wire came directly from the ignition coil, hidden under the doghouse, however I should have used some form of shielded wire as it runs past the radio and causes some annoying high pitched squealing in the radio now.

For the speedo/odometer, I swapped the board off the back of the modules, so it would look correct with the other new modules.

large pix: http://goput.it/str/rfg.jpg http://goput.it/str/pzq.jpg

[KhanTyranitar]

So quick question. How would one set up the tach for a 4 cylinder? This is hypothetical.

[93nighthawk]

Originally Posted by KhanTyranitar

So quick question. How would one set up the tach for a 4 cylinder? This is hypothetical.

This is just pure theory, but if you swap out the Tach motor out of a Ford Contour/Mystique and bolt it onto the F-150 Board, I am thinking that it will give you the right reading. But again, this is a total guess.

[99f350sd]

Wow really nice work.. Wish I had time to do it.. So what year f150 is the best to get.?




Dick

[93nighthawk]

Originally Posted by 99f350sd

Wow really nice work.. Wish I had time to do it.. So what year f150 is the best to get.?




Dick

I would recomend a '95/96 f-150/bronco because those years have all the trouble lights you need, but anything post '92 will work with some minor changes.

[99f350sd]

Thanks much...So the speedo works ok... ODO and such will be different huh?

[93nighthawk]

Originally Posted by 99f350sd

Thanks much...So the speedo works ok... ODO and such will be different huh?

I just re-used my original speedo with odo. It is a stand alone unit with its own set of wires. It is designed just like the F-150/bronco speedo so it just snapes into the cluster. I just pulled my old speedo out, pulled the f-150 speedo out, snapped my speedo in the new cluster, that was it.

By re-using your old speedo, your speed will be accurate to your tires, (you don't have to reset the speedo to your tire size) and your millage is stored in there to. It is just plug and play, which is nice.

[99f350sd]

Oh yea..tanks

[Kmega99]

Thanks allot for this information. I'm making allot of mods to my aerostar. I had brought a 95 F150 cluster off ebay and download wire diagrams. Before I spent hours or days trying to figure out how to swap wires I found this forum. You have saved me allot of time. I have no experience dealing with clusters at all so this will be a huge help.

[Kmega99]

I'm having problems getting all the lights to work.

[Kmega99]

I've changed out all the bulbs. The only lights that work are the Check Engine, ABS, Flashers, and Airbag. The cluster won't even light up. The gauges work.