Hey all,

I was walking through my local salvage yard this past weekend, Looking at ineterior parts for my next project(That is after I get my 78 put all back together). I picked up an 87 F-350 club cab 4x4 460 4spd (high pinion) carb. Yes last year of carb for the trucks..

Im gonna switch the nose and interior to 96 specs....

I for see a few things being issues....

Air bag column- no real biggie .. I just wont hook up the bag...

Instrument cluster..... digital odometer.... problem.....

I looked at another 87 or so in the salvage yard... and the two clusters seem to look pretty similar...

Anyone know if I could use an 87 cluster in a 96 dash....

Heater assembly.... The 96 has round dials.... the 87 has sliders... Will this be a major pain in the butt.... Im not afraid of swaping parts... but im not an
engineer..

 

I am not for sure as to how the entire dash bolts in but on the 73-79 you could interchange the entire dash. If you could that is the way I would go. If you could find the right truck you could chane the wiring harness also. Good Luck!!

 

The Cluster Should Work But You Will Have To Chage Alot Of Parts To Make The Whol Thing Work I Have Tried This Same Conversion On My 89 150 But I Got Entirely To Aggravated And Put The Original Back, But I Also Drive My Truck Daily And Have Not Had The Time To Have Her Down The Length Of Time Nessecary To Convert It But I Will, But It Is Possible

 

>Instrument cluster..... digital odometer.... problem.....

You have two choices.

Keep the 88 wiring behind the dash, and retain the 88 cluster, or, swap in the 96 wiring, use the 96 cluster and the 96 ECM, and convert the truck to EFI.

Obviously, the former is easier.

Regarding the heater controls, round, sliders, makes no difference. The switches behind both have the same connnectors, its plug and play. You'll just have to use needle nose pliars (small ones) to carefully remove the cable retention clip to move it over to the new controls, then reinsert the clip. My 93 F350 has a set of Ford Taurus controls, from the non-oval taurus. Why? Because I found a set of controls in the junkyard that were in nice shape, and all of the similar year ford truck controls in the same yard were beaten to ****.

Back to the cluster... the 92-96 clusters mechanically mount the same way, however they are wired drastically differently, and the speedo/odo require rear ABS to be installed as well as the fuel injection ECM. The speedo/odo gets a filtered pulse-per-mile signal from the ABS computer, which in turn gets it from a speed sensor mounted on the differential. This is why on the 92-96 trucks, you can swap gears, trannies, whatever you like aside from the tire diameter, and not have to reprogram the cluster or change speed sensors. It will remain accurate until you change tire size, and reprogram.

 

Hey frederic,

I was hoping that the clusters were the same mounting wise... and with the forums help this seems to be true. Being that this is the case, I plan to gut the 87 down to the wiring harness... and use the 96 dash and hardware... Ill have to splice in such things as the fuel tank switcher and such...

And if the heater slider\dial assemblys are plug and play that is another simple item....

My only next problem will be finding interior power door panels for the crew cab.

 

I'm not sure if it's pertinate to a crew cab, but I know it is for the extended cab. I replaced a cab corner on my truck(96 F-250) with one from an '86. The 86 had no mounts for the shoulder belt, and no hole for the rear speaker. I just skinned it, so it worked OK.

 

The dash, column and pedal mounting to the cab itself is different on a 92-97 and an 80-91 truck(80-86 and 87-91 interiors are nearly a bolt in swap)
You may run into a very large problem with that.
I'd suggest alot of measuring....

 

for the most part the trucks are the same right up to the body style change in 97 or so.... Interior dimensions should be the same...

Im not afraid of cutting brackets out of the 96 and welding them back into my 87... But I will cross that bridge when it comes to it...

How about the column ... any one know if The 96 column will bolt up in the 87... or is that bracket different... If it comes to it I got torches and a welder...

 

seems like tya got this all planned out good luck on the conversion any pics of the truck ???

 

oh I like your 78 also !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

Yeah I got some pics.... I will post them soon..... Just been busy with the 78 supercab ....