My 1987 Two Door Crown Victoria AKA THE BROWN BLOB

[DerekTheGreat]

Goofy. Diodes.. there was one section in physics were we had to make calculations based on those things and resistors and what have you. Guess my solution would be to pull the diode. Ferd truck has those lil map lights for light anyway. Ford got a lot of mileage out of those combo door & map lights. Ah, I thought everything got MAF in '96 since OBDII took over. I'd settle for a I6. I like those things.

[His Royal Ghostliness]

You're thinking capacitors, not diodes. Diodes are nothing more than 1-way check valves for electrons, you just choose one that's rated for the current it's supposed to carry and call it good. Caps tho, yeah, lots more fun can be had there But yeah, I love diodes, you can do all sorts of neat trickery with them.

If your dome/map lights assembly looks like the one in your Towncar, ditch it, it sucks. Replace it with one from a Taurus, much better. They can be used on box Panthers as well, but look a bit outta place there, right at home in aeros tho.

[DerekTheGreat]

They put them in as a sort of test, to see if you were paying attention when making your calculations.

Yep. Which year Tauri?

[His Royal Ghostliness]

The rounded goofy-looking ones, so late-'90s IIRC.

[gadget73]

Yeah.....



To be honest the new gauges use spade terminals so it works out fine in this situation.

Maybe consider a multi-pin connector so you can just undo them without risk of mixing up the wiring. My S-W gauges are screw terminal, but those are tied to about a 12" long harness to a 6 pin connector that lets me yank the whole thing easily. I got a pack of them on ebay for cheap. No clue about their supposed weather-tight status but inside the car I don't much care.

[His Royal Ghostliness]

I actually removed the weather-tight seals between the two halves of the connectors for my switch panels, they were entirely too hard to disconnect with seals in place and I really don't have enough space to get a good grip of the connectors and pull like a beast till they separate. My connectors are Ford connectors for chassis harnesses, they typically live in areas where all sorts of nasty stuff gets flung onto them so they need to seal very tight - well, tight they do seal alright, too tight for my particular application.

But yes, in this situation I would totally leave the bare minimum tracers in the printed circuit and run everything else via an external connector hard-spliced into the factory harness. That way if any gauge changes are being made later on, just repin the cluster side of said connector as needed. May be a good idea to use a connector with a few extra pin slots as well, like an 8-pin if you only need 6 pins for your current gauge setup.

[87gtVIC]

David, do you have any pics of the cluster in mock-up phase? Curious to see what it will look like from the other side.

This is all I got...Current pics as it stands completed:

Oh, here are a few pics of the reading lights Townies got in the back..
[ATTACH=CONFIG]47129[/ATTACH][ATTACH=CONFIG]47130[/ATTACH]

Thanks.

Good grief that's a lot of wok on that cluster! But it is what it is, if there ain't no other way to get it how you want it you gotta endure... (says the guy with solid week's worth of wiring aux switches and relays and shit). Dumb question/concern, but if the gauges are so deep, and they have spade terminals sticking out the back, do double-check depth availability in the dash there - you need at least 1/2" on top of combined gauge+cluster thickness for the spade connectors and the wires. May also be a good idea to use right-angle spade connectors, if it will allow for wiring to be tidier.

This is the next step. Fincding out what I have to work with space wise. I know Johnnie blaze had autometers in his dash like this so there is a way! I just need to find it.

Maybe consider a multi-pin connector so you can just undo them without risk of mixing up the wiring. My S-W gauges are screw terminal, but those are tied to about a 12" long harness to a 6 pin connector that lets me yank the whole thing easily. I got a pack of them on ebay for cheap. No clue about their supposed weather-tight status but inside the car I don't much care.

Good point. Hope to not remove the damned thing again really. I have label machine and the wires will (I say that now but probably wont) be labeled to avoid such confusion.

I actually removed the weather-tight seals between the two halves of the connectors for my switch panels, they were entirely too hard to disconnect with seals in place and I really don't have enough space to get a good grip of the connectors and pull like a beast till they separate. My connectors are Ford connectors for chassis harnesses, they typically live in areas where all sorts of nasty stuff gets flung onto them so they need to seal very tight - well, tight they do seal alright, too tight for my particular application.

But yes, in this situation I would totally leave the bare minimum tracers in the printed circuit and run everything else via an external connector hard-spliced into the factory harness. That way if any gauge changes are being made later on, just repin the cluster side of said connector as needed. May be a good idea to use a connector with a few extra pin slots as well, like an 8-pin if you only need 6 pins for your current gauge setup.

I'll see how it all goes once I get them clearanced in the dash.

[gadget73]

I actually removed the weather-tight seals between the two halves of the connectors for my switch panels, they were entirely too hard to disconnect with seals in place

cheap-ass China "weatherpak" connectors come apart fairly easy. Thats why I seriously doubt their weather tight claims. I think I paid 10 bucks for 6 or 8 of them. No faith in high current capability but for meter signal they do fine.

[87gtVIC]

Oops.

Anyone spot what I missed?
















Thanks goodness I found this now or I would have been pissed!

Easy fix:



All better:




High beam indicator and top left illumination bulb would have NEVER worked without a ground.

Now its back to normal, kinda. Ground spun all around the printed circuit starting at the connector (obviously) the heading out to everything on the right ride of the cluster then looped way back around and hit up the left turn indicator as well as the lowest left illumination bulb THEN went back and met up with the high beam and top left illumination bulb.

I just bypassed the BIG loop at the left turn indicator etc.

Ugly weather so no progress inside the vehicle.

[sly]

Yup... That wouldn't have worked too well.

[His Royal Ghostliness]

Being as OCD as you are, how can you even stand looking at that looong red wire looping over above the gauge? Thing is just begging to get snagged onto something as you're installing the cluster. Don't have to unsolder it to fix that, just swing it over the gauge and run it underneath it, give it a few creative bends to shorten its overall length as needed.

[87gtVIC]

Its long so I can pull it out and replace the bulb easily. Its soldered directly to the bulb housing contact. There was no room for printed circuit to live there and attach to.

[His Royal Ghostliness]

That makes sense. I'd have still routed it under the gauge tho, more protected that way, cause remember you got a dash full of sharp edges to deal with around the cluster. Also why not switch the thing to LEDs while you have it out? Gadget said he used "warm white" 2800k LEDs and they make everything look exactly like regular 194 bulbs do. That's the way I'll be going too cause I got yellow and red colors on my gauges and colored LEDs will not play nice with those.

[87gtVIC]

I have 5 way green LEDS in the 4 allotted illumination slots. Stock caps are removed.

The one in question is a turn signal indicator. I don't see the need for an LED and am unsure of what weirdness it would/could cause to the entire circuit, if anything.

[His Royal Ghostliness]

Electronic flasher, the solution to all your possible issues Those turn signal indicators are wired in parallel with the front turn signals - with or without the indicators, the circuit will work as intended since the resistance of a 194 bulb is negligible compared to that of the 1157s your turn signals have. That's actually why you're able to run side turn signals tied into the fronts, (the setup where you end up with a wig-wag pattern per side), which trick by the way also works with LEDs as side markers/blinkers as long as they're not polarity sensitive. Hell I took my entire rear stop/turn lamps out of the factory circuit via relays and everything still worked properly, courtesy of the electronic flasher.

All this FYI of course, I'm not trying to pressure you into anything you don't wanna be doing for whatever reason.