I emailed T-bird Sanctuary on a new or replacement dash board panel. The white panel that the gauges bolt to that has the tape circuit board on the back. They dont carry any good used ones nor is there any chance of reproduction one being made.

So does anyone here know where I can check to find used ones that are not brittle or falling apart?

What about the 72 - 73 torino the gauges look the same but I dont know if the housing would have the same bolt ups as a 77 - 79?

Last question is bout restoration suppliers I cant find any for a 78 Cougar so I have been looking at Tbirds since shared parts but cant find any that carry what I am looking for.

 

You might also look at the LTD II gauge clusters. I was fortunate enough to find 3 different cars to pull the assemblies from. 2 disintegrated as we were removing them. the remaining one was good enough to install. If that breaks up, I may make up something from phenolic board to replace it. It seems any white plastic on cars of that vintage is doomed for some reason.

 

I agree. You would think they would make parts for these cars just the cougars alone in 77 - 79 was equal to all built in 67 - 73 which they make parts for. Not to mention the 77-79 Tbird/Lincoln Mk IV/LTD II shared all the same parts as the cougars of the same year for the most part. You would think cars with that many made would have restoration parts made for them.

But T-bird sanctuary told me that its like 1 in a 1,000,000,000 chance of those parts ever being reproduced cause theres no demand for them. I like to know why not there were so many of them made and im sure the orignal tooling is laying around somewheres.

But I know the 73 Torino had the same exact gauge layout as the 77-79 tbird/cougar did with the optional full gage setup. gauges look different though on the face and I thought about doing a swap though but the oil pressure and engine temp gauges are swapped on the housing doubt my stock harness would power them correctly. Not to mention I didnt feel like spending $200 for a 73 torino gauge cluster assembly that wasnt tested sure of working

 

Pay close attention to the wiring of the flex circuit. Each was different on the three different years of the same make. I just used my original flex and gauges with the new plastic. Check Ebay motors, you might find a cluster that hasn't seen as much extreme temperatures. Search each make. Good Luck!

 

I thought about that getting the 73 torino gauge assembly and using my circuitboard but my orignal idea was to get gauges that said 120 mph cause 85mph is bad when you do 70 - 80 on the freeway. I will just have to look and hope i find one or they start making them.

 

I will keep a eye out for ya' Rusty.......Goin' to the salvage yard real soon, will cruise by the Ford "heavy metal"...........Cars in the salvage yards from the 70s out here look better than 2003s back east...........Lots of good land yachts the last time I was there.

 

Theres few things im looking for the cougar center caps for the turbine rims (hard to find), the driverside kick panel (previous owner took it off for repairs and lost it), the two corner light relays under the dashboard (who knows where they went their gone as well as the wiring).

But most of that is stuff that is cosmetic and no rush on. I could even take some modern headlight relays and wire them in to make those lights to work so those relays arent a problem either.

 

I have a 1979 T-bird and I located a place near Mitchell South Dakota I you dont mind the shipping cost they might be able to help you. The last time I walked through they had at least 6 birds and 4-5 cougars. Phone number for this place is 605-996-8204 they dont have a web site but I hope the number helps

 

Ill check into it. I came across one place up north that had a very plain website but they claimed to had 20 cougars of 77 - 79 but they never answer their phone number or emails. I will give them a call though after I try again to get in touch with Flex-a-lite in the morning.