Gday all,

I have an EFII Futura, with the standard four gauge dash. I'd like to have oil pressure and voltmeter as well, but don't particularly want to pay for a Fairmont cluster. I've pulled my current instrument cluster apart, and the circuit board has slots for the extra two instruments, and the instrument faces are there, just covered up.




Can I just get another low series cluster, whip out two instrument motors and needles, and plug them into my cluster? (And of course add an oil pressure sensor, and cut a couple of holes in the blanker plate so I can actually see the extra gauges).

Another thing I've been wondering about, is it possible to have the odo/tripmeter LCD located away from the cluster circuit board? I'm thinking that after I do the above mod, I'll have a spare (incomplete) cluster. I could splice some wires to connect this second cluster, hide the guts of it away somewhere, and have just its display on show, thus giving me a second tripmeter, or diagnostic mode. The only problem is that rubbery connector strip from the board to the LCD.

Final question: has anyone tried using a signal generator to change odometer readings? Audio signal generators can be had fairly cheaply on ebay, and one of them could produce the square wave output of the vehicle speed sensor, and trick the car into thinking it's doing (say) 1000km/h. Let that run for a few days, and advance the odo all the way past 1 000 000km, and then stop at whatever reading you want it.

Sorry about the rambling. Any advice appreciated.

God, It can be done.

you'll need a s**t more than just the drives.
you need (surface mount) ICs, resistors, caps, diodes etc...
actually, stuff it you cant do it... you'll need to Disect a Mid series to do it... waste of time.

Yes, you can relocate the lcd display, however if you've got a cat, grandma or a dog to keep you sane whilst you waste about 4 days of fidly stuff... it'll work.

you can fetch Mid series clusters for about $80, if you need to solder and jave fun, transfer the odo eeprom to retain ur current readings.



read this:
http://www.fordmods.com/forums/documents.php?doc=14

I've built a mid series cluster from a base model (about 2 yrs ago-it works and I still have it) - I used the parts off a wrecked high series cluster to do it though. There is a particular IC that is only on the mid & high series circuit boards, that you'll need.
As mentioned, easiest and quickest way is to buy a mid series cluster and change the Eprom over.

you cant have a seperatley located LCD displaying different content to the first one. if you want a diagnostic mode display in combination with the standard one, you will need to install circutry from another cluster to drive the LCD.

Just buy a Fairmont cluster

Hmm. Bugger. There goes my brilliant plan. Would the voltmeter work by just plugging it in?


That's what I meant. The difficulty will be in having the second LCD some distance from the second cluster circuit board.

Why would you want to do that? not really in the spirit of.. well anything!

To change the odometer reading when replacing a cluster, because I'm scared of soldering EEPROMs. And because I like doing things the hard way .