Instrument Cluster Preview

Since winter is basically here.. time to move back into the interior and work on all of the electrical items that have been neglected. For the past while, we have been driving around with a new Mustang cluster buried behind the original dash. If the spacing between gauges were similar this would be OK for now, but they are far off which make seeing anything next to impossible. That brings back the dash design we started years ago.

Several goals with this design:
– Maintain overall original 1968 looking gauges – this was a one year only color
– Backlight with LED’s instead of the original front lighting (requires transparent faces)
– Integrate Mustang air core gauges into cluster so they can be hooked up to the Mustang cluster electronincs
– Use newer style Mustang digital odometer
– Add more real gauges instead of idiot lights
– Integrate all of the Mustang dash lights like ABS, check engine, traction control etc..
– House everything in a modified original Torino gauge cluster housing

First a look at the oringal parts and pieces. Here are the references – an original 1968 cluster with the tach option, and the “donor” 2003/2004 Cobra cluster with a boost gauge. After that, some spare clusters we have for mock-up – a Mustang GT gauge cluster and a base 1968 Torino cluster.




After countless hours of work using Adobe Illustrator, the first image is what we came up with in the beginning. After some more time and taking into consideration of how the Mustang gauges are set up and how they work, we came up with the last one which we will run with for the time being. The hardest part here was accomadating the Mustang smaller gauges into the package. The lower design also matches the dimensions of the original cluster exactly.

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