A few weeks ago I was looking through this site and came across some pictures of the restoration of an instrument cluster (believe it was 69 or 70) and they had some incredible photos of the light colored plastic (cream color) - there was some stuff I wanted to look at again and for the life of me the search engine has not been able to turn that article back up and I have been lookings for hours—uuugghhh does anyone remember these pics? by chance?
if so please let me know what the section was (here or forum etc.?)and article?
Also- it doesnt appear there is the ability to search posts that contain pictures? any format? is that a possibility?
thanks
Chris
FOUND IT-it was Steve O thread titled 1970 Cougar Exterior Restoration thread
trying to restore instrument cluster on a standard 69 cougar. would like to change over to the XR-7 cluster. How hard is it or is it even possible.
thanks
It is not very hard. All you need is a complete 69 XR-7 wiring harness. If you want everything to work then you will also need to change the engine sending units. You will also need to change the fuel sending unit to an XR-7 version. And you will need to add the door ajar switches to your door latches. Be sure to get the XR-7 toggle switches and map light. If your car does not already have them you will add the interior roof sail panel lights.
Randy Goodling
CCOA #95
It’s not hard? I think that is an understatement big time. You would have to change the under dash wiring harness completely. And if you change that, then you will need to change the under hood wiring harness also. And if you change that, you will need to change the alternator wiring harness (to the tachometer type). Oh, and you will need to change the oil pressure sending unit from the “light” type to the “gauge” type. And if you want your low fuel light to work, you will need to change the entire rear wiring harness as well. And if you want your door ajar light to work, you will need to change both door wiring harnesses…I think you get the point. There is a ton of work to make all these changes!!
The better option is to upgrade your standard instruments to use a tachometer. Use the rocketman tach. It is awesome and easy to install. It goes in the blank where the clock is. If you have a clock, then re-locate the clock to the passenger side, like the XR7. I did both of these changes on a 1969 Standard convertible I had, and it came out amazing! Much cheaper and easier to go this route, and you get a tachometer that looks and works just like a factory one.
Yep. Most conversions don’t end well.
I have done this several times using 70 parts. First was in to a standard 69 that I upgraded(so to speak) to a 70 Eliminator clone, second was the same parts in to another 70 Standard. But I swapped the XR-7 wire harness in as well as the gauge cluster. Putting the cluster in with standard wire harness requires moving pins in the connector and adding circuits and senders to your Cougar. Even doing it the way I have requires correct sender units. And remember the alternator harness is different between XR-7 and Standard.(found out the hard way)
I suppose it depends upon your definition of “hard”. No, it is not a 5 minute job but in my opinion it is not that hard of a job. Yes, you will need to take things apart to swap out the wiring harness. Yes, you will need to change more things than you first thought of. And yes, I have done this job in the past on a 70. Been there, done that. And it was not that hard. If you do take on this job just remember to plug the factory tach into the main under dash harness before you try to start the car, I learned that doing this swap too.
Randy Goodling
CCOA #95
