So I went a pulled an instrument cluster from the jy, cleaned it up and went to hook it up, only to find I have a different plug in my truck despite the same years. 14connector vs 18connector. Also, my plug's wires are mutilated beyond belief.

I'm planning on going through and soldering + shrink wrapping all these bad connections in the next few days and I got to thinking... Could I hook up my wires to the new cluster's plug and have it work?

Was going to add pics, but it's not letting me at the moment.

 

There are two different plugs used. The larger one is for the instrument cluster that has oil pressure gauge and an ammeter. The smaller plug is for the cluster that uses idiot lights.
The two clusters are not interchangeable. You'll need to get the correct cluster to match your wiring harness.

 

Also note that the full gauge circuit boards are not all the same pin arrangement.

 

It's possible to swap clusters around, but with a few caveats.
-Going lights to gauges, you lose your ammeter gauge function because well... your harness doesn't have the extra wiring.
-Swap Oil Pressure Sender to/from gauges/switch.

Use a wire schematic and look between the two connectors to place the wires in their correct order.

 

You can re-pin your idiot light cluster wiring to match the gauge cluster connector requirements; not hard to do as I've done it. You MUST know what year the gauge cluster is out of though as the flexible wiring boards are different. Install a oil pressure sender in place of the oil pressure switch and your oil pressure gauge is now functional.
You can also send your ammeter out to be turned into a voltmeter and then you just plug in a 12v and a ground wire into the gauge connector locations in place of the ammeter ones and everything works fine. I did this and connected the abandoned ammeter wires from the harness up to the seatbelt light on my 75 gauge panel. I replaced the seatbelt lens in the gauge with a Alt light lens and everything work perfectly.
Tbruz

 

It has an aftermarket oil pressure gauge and ammeter installed currently, would I just be able to hook up the wires from them into the non-idiot cluster harness?

 

Sorry, not trying to hijack but this definitely sounds like the way to do it if someone is going after a factory look. I would like to update my dads '75 Explorer with all factory gauges like this. Where did you send the ampmeter? Do you have any pictures of the cluster? Thanks!

 

On the oil pressure gauge I don't think so. These gauges operate on ~5.5 volts not 12. And definitely no on the ammeter. The factory ammeter (which is a POS) is a shunt style while most aftermarket ammeters are the direct read type.

 

https://www.ford-trucks.com/forums/1...olt-meter.html

Looks like I'll probably do this when I get some spare cash. Until then I think I'll mount the aftermarket voltmeter under my dash

 

Looks like that's from the 80-86 forum. Would that be the same procedure for the 73-79 trucks? I was hoping tbruz would tell us where he got his reconfigured.

 

Here's the guy that does the conversion. Scroll almost to the bottom of the page.
Rocketman's Classic Cougar Innovations

You can either keep the original "ammeter" face or you can have the face changed to the voltmeter face.

 

Thank you! I knew I had seen it somewhere. I've been looking through the Tech folders.