Got a Lariat cab but no plug-in socked for my Digital clock! (was surprised this didn't already have a clock) It has Cruise but no tilt also.
thought these thing were supposed to be loaded.

No big deal, I can wire it in....

 

My Bronk is an XLT and has the digital
clock. I would think the Lariat would
also have it. Numberdummy Bill
would know me thinks.

 

The nice thing about these trucks is that when they were new, they didn't include options that you didn't want. The clock, the security group, the convenience group, tilt wheel, etc were all options that you had to order. Lariats only came with the bare essential appearance options that make up the Lariat trim level, such as wood-grain or carpeted trim panels on the doors, back wall carpeting, etc.

Nowadays in order to get "x" option, you have to order it with "z" option, which also includes the "y" option, and makes the truck a whole lot more expensive.

 

My 1981 F100 XLT came with the clock plug in. I installed a clock in it last year
and it was mainly just plug in and go.

 

What year cab did you get?

 

1985, not a speck of rust on the floor! 29 year old paint is still shiny

 

The plug is down by the ashtray on the RH side, near another plug used for the optional courtesy lights.

The clock would have used an extension cable to run to the top of the center cluster.

 

I just learned that some of these trucks weren't wired for a tach - and that includes the Lariat models. Here are a couple of the instrument panels I have and the bottom one, pulled from an '85 Lariat, is the one I've been running in Rusty. I was in the process of cleaning up the instrument panel, getting all the lights working, and was going to swap in the extra tach I have when I found this:




Then I went to the parts catalog and confirmed it:

 

My Lariat had idiot lights, the wiring for the tach was totally nonexistent. Also, my factory clock connected with a 4-pin trailer connecter in the top of the dash... factory. Nowhere in any catalog will you see the part number for that clock.

 

Looks just like the cluster that came out of my '82 F150. It didnt have a tach and the cluster circuit board didnt have anything either for a tach. The one I got came out of god knows what but it what ever it was had a OD transmission and it was plug and play for me.

 

Trucks with gauges had the wiring in the harness for the tach, even if the tach wasn't included. Trucks with idiot lights didn't have the wiring at all.

 

Yes, but while the wiring is in the harness the printed circuit isn't always on the cluster. Doing a bit of checking with my stash:

• Dad's 81 Ranger XLT with gauges didn't
• Rusty, another 81 XLT with gauges didn't
• Brownie, the 82 XLT with gauges didn't
• The 85 Lariat I parted out didn't but had gauges
• The 86 with gauges I parted out did

But someplace along the way I acquired two more clusters, both with the tach printed circuit, although I don't know what they came from. So, the bottom line is that of the 7 clusters with gauges I've had my hands on, only 3 had the tach circuit.

 

My 1981 had gauges and no tach as it came from the factory. I swapped in a 1984
cluster that had gauges and the tach. It plugged in with no problems and the tach
works fine.

It is my understanding that all 1980-1986 that came with factory gauges but no tach
can be converted by changing the printed circuit film on the back. You used to could
order just the printed circuit film from Ford. I thind LMC truck lists them as available
now.

 

That is true, the printed circuits were different between those two. What I meant was, if you had the lights, the PC was totally different, no place to install a tach at all, and the wiring was not present at all. The plug is there coming off the ICM, but no place to plug into on the truck harness.

Here is the difference, keep in mind the green PC is '80 specific and the red is '81-'86, has nothing to do with gauges vs lights:



Also, the red one was hardwired at the time, I hadn't got the proper plug and repinned yet.

 

And just for the record, here's the difference between the clocks. The one on the right is what the catalogues say is '80-'83, the one on the left is 1980 only. In reality, the one on the right has a 1981 part number, the one on the left has a 1980 part number, and that part number shows up nowhere in any literature I've ever seen.