Project digital hybrid cluster

[FatNasty]

I did some work on my digital hybrid cluster the last couple of days. Definitely put my dremel to good use, used that for hours and hours. I have a good idea of what the finished product will look like now. I debated a lot over how i wanted to design this but i think this turned out well. There are a few imperfections in its appearance. I still have a lot of work to do, the odometer needs fastened in and a lot of wiring needs moved. Then i need to make some modifications to the dash behind the cluster so it will fit, its about 50% deeper now. Also i need the fuel sender from a donor car, and i'm not looking forward to doing that, it sounds like a pain in the ass. Well here are some pics so far:

[RugerP97DC]

Nice.

[gadget73]

Would be really cool if you could paint over the speed markings on the stock speedo face so only the digital display was visible. What would be the absolute coolest is if somehow a tachometer could be done to use a short needle around the outside of the digital speedometer, but that would probably be pretty near impossible without having some specially custom built gauge for the job.

[85crownHPP]

nice work mang
I hope yours isnt a bust like mine

[raser13]

looks awsome mang!!! i would have to agree with gadget and say paint the side with the speedo. a $1.00 at wally world for some cheap silver paint will bring some nice results. my only coment besides that would be to TAKE YOUR TIME!!! i went through a lot of cursen' doing mine because i got to excited and rushed it. also make shure to mesure twice and cut once or you might be heading out to the bone yard to find another cluster to hack up again(not fun trust me)

[1987LTDmasta]

also reccomend tinting the plastic cover with regular 20% winbdow tint.

prettu cool tho! not a big fan of digital speedos but noneless thats awesome!

[Dave84]

yea that will be neat in a grand marquis

[Tiggie]

Looks good mang. Are these digital speedo's limited to 85MPH like the T-Bird/Cougar ones?

[gadget73]

Yeah they're limited. I want to find a way to hotwire them. The Couger/Tbird ones can be modded to read over 85.

[gabegt90]

shoud be interesting when it all done looks kick ass mang

[grandpaslincoln]

Sweeeeeeeet

[FatNasty]

Thanks for the compliments and suggestions. I am going to paint the speedo face when i find some paint that matches the stock look well.

Yeah they're limited. I want to find a way to hotwire them. The Couger/Tbird ones can be modded to read over 85.

The digital speedo setup for TC's is very similar to the cougar one.
There is a writup on another site on how to modify it. The problem is the component numbers on the circuit board are printed on the side where you cant see them so i will need to get a spare one to take apart for testing.

[raser13]

hey any luck on finding spraypaint ot mach the stock stuff? if so any picks? or just maybe some pics in dash?

[MarquisMalarky]

How is the wiring conversion for that? I'm halfway decent with that stuff but I'm used to the Chrysler stuff. I hear that the Ford wiring is pretty easy, which is good. some of the Chrysler stuff had Body Control Modules and stuff, ugh, it was a nightmare! I put a 1990 turbo motor in my 94 Caravan and never had a tach, speedo, etc. It sucked.

I was considering making a similar dashboard fit into my Marq, something about the same size. I'd love a tach dash of some sort.

[gadget73]

The Ford digi clusters are all self contained. Only possible input is from the VSS and maybe a fuel flow wire if its got the tripminder functions built in and tach signals. Otherwise its mostly just feeding power from the ignition and light circuits. The only real exception to that is Towncar message center functions. Those actually have resistor wire interfaces with all the lighting for the lamp outage module, and its run through this massive brick-like computer under the dash. The actual speedometer is self contained though.