My daughter and I are building a "69 cougar. We started with 2 XR7s and 2 standards. We are taking all the nicest parts from the 4 cars to build one car. I have recently learned that there are 2 different instrument clusters for '69, early and late. Can anyone tell me the difference between the 2 and is there separate schematics for the 2 versions?
I believe the early 69s have a red circuit board and the late 69s an all 70s have a blue one. The gauges are the same for all, but the front plate is notched at the bottom for the larger 70 locking steering column.
Hmmm. My 69 standard build was October 68, I just had the cluster out last weekend and I am pretty sure it was blue.
As i understand it, the Red printed Circuit board is for Factory Tach cars and the Blue is for NON-Tach cars
You’re right. I just looked through my stack of clusters and the only XR7 I could find with a date code was March '69. It had a red one. I did notice that the back planes with blue CBs all had an ear and notch at the bottom while none of the backplanes without the ear and notch have the blue CB - all are red. That would fit with the 70’s larger steering column. Additionally, the red CB has a -D1 engineering code at the end of the Part Number and the blue has no engineering revision code. So Early 69 Blue, late 69 and all 70s RED. That also explains why I get so many red ones.
Other way around.
No, same applies for std. Early was blue then came red in 70.
Red came out sometime during the second half of the '69 model year. All the '69 Eliminators received the red card.
Most times the color of the connector that plugs into the back of the circuit board/cluster will dictate which circuit board you need to use. Black connector = early board, white connector = late or ‘70 board. (If I remember correctly)
Also be careful that you use the full harness from one vehicle as I ended up having another version of the rear harness and had to cut and splice to reverse a couple of wires in the two big connectors that plug the rear harness into the main under dash harness in order for my tail lights to work correctly. That took some serious troubleshooting for me to figure out.
My April 69 built xr7 is red with the white connector.
Technically there are 9 different harness’s for the 69. There is an early standard with A/C, without A/C and it uses the blue pcb. Then you have a late standard with A/C and without A/C and it uses the red pcb. They are pinned and wired different. You could use an A/C harness in a car without A/C but not vice versa unless you wanted cut up your non A/C harness to fit. Then you have the early XR-7 with A/C and with non A/C, again it uses the blue pcb. Then you have a late XR-7 with A/C and non A/C, uses the red pcb. Then the MPC lists a harness for the early Boss 302, never seen one. I have a lot of Std harness’s with the black plugs (for the cluster) both early and late and I have the same for the XR-7, The white plugs I think are very late and from what I can see there is no wiring or pin difference in any of the late plugs. But you can have black plugs for early or late.
A question from a newbie and non-Cougar owner:
Are the positions of the gauges, lights, and CVR different between the blue and red circuit cards? In other words, did only the circuit card change (and associated pins) vice the actual dash cluster itself?
The location of the circuit contacts for the plug and routing of a couple of the circuits differs between the two. Putting an “early” dash circuit into a “late” car will cause a nasty short circuit.
Understood, but one could have different routing for each circuit card but the dash cluster itself could remain the same.
I think a couple of warning lights were swapped.
This is what I have from my LED Conversion Instructions.
Note the Pinout differences for the interface connector etc. This doc is what led ne to believe the Red & Blue versions were Tach/Non- Tach
My 69 has a Blue PCB, January 1969 build Date, Non-Tach (not anymore Rocketman!)
So what I have learned so far is that there are definitely two different instrument clusters for a 69 XR7 and if I have a black plug on my harness it will most likely work with the instrument cluster that I have with the blue printed circuit. What I am trying to find out is what are the specific differences between the two and what is the nasty short that occurs when plugging the wrong instrument cluster into the wrong wiring harness. Is it possible to simply reconfigure the harness plug to match the instrument cluster?
Not if one cluster has an ammeter and the other has an alternator indicator lamp. These require completely different wires/signals to make them work and are incompatible with one another. That was part of my earlier question as to whether these two dash clusters themselves are different. In the Mustang world (67-70), the non-tach dash cluster has an ammeter and the tach dash cluster has the alternator indicator lamp. In the Cougar world, that’s not always the case.
The circuit boards are not just std/XR-7. The early boards are blue, blue standard (non tach) and blue XR-7 (tach, ammeter, oil pressure gauge) about mar 3rd I think, I looked at the MPC and could be wrong but it is close to that time frame, they changed the configuration of the way the wiring is set to the tabs in the board. When they changed the wires they changed the color of the board to red. Red standard and red XR-7 so hence the early and late. The under dash harness is C9WB 14401- then it is followed by two letters AB, AC, AU, AV these will tell you early or late standard or XR-7. I have a blue XR-7 board here at home and it is numbered C9WF-10C956. If you look at WCCC website you can see the boards and the difference. I also found our description of them is not correct and the plug photos are all of the same plug. These will be corrected soon, and I apologize as these were my descriptions 10 years ago. In the case of the standard the early board shows almost all of the tabs are used and the late board shows fewer and spaces not used along one side, all the wiring diagrams I have only show the later (red) wiring. The change had to do mostly with the ground configuration. In the early there was a ground wire in on pin# 9 it then goes to pin #12 which then goes to the clock ground in the harness. The late harness changes the routing and the ground wire configuration. (thus the fire and smoke). Sbrenner you could take what you have and compare them to the listing of the circuit boards listed by WCCC, go to the web site and enter 69 for your year and search printed, it will list all the boards. Hope this helps and thanks for the question it helped us correct them! As to the black vs white plug, you will find black early and late and standard and XR-7. The white plug came in during the late run but did not change the configuration of the wiring, You could have a black or white plug in the late runs.
I just installed these LEDs, hence having the board out. I got the mid range bulbs ( 5x brighter ) and can not endorse them enough. An amazing product/value/ease of install.