custom guage cluster... (completed! 9/26 lots more pics)

[htchbck]

Thats what I'm working with... any opinions on it would be greatly appreciated. I don't have photoshop, so that is a conglomeration of a scaled picture of my stock cluster and scans of the two guage faces from the guages I bought at the jy. The temp and fuel are stock festy, and the speedo and tach are from a Protege LX (BP car). I chose those cause they fit and I figured wiring the tach might be a little bit easier since its from a B series engine that happens to be the same engine in my car now. I'm thinking I'm going to take that image to the print shop at the college and have them print it out for me on an adhesive transparency, then stick that to a plexiglass face and backlight it. I'm not sure how accurate the speedo will read, but it does plug into the festy speedo cable. On the speedo it says "1025 revolutions per mile"... so if anyone knows the revolutions per mile for a festy speedo that would help a lot. Also, if anyone has a cluster wiring diagram for a tach cluster then I'd love to have a scan of that. Any other thoughts, questions, suggestions or concerns would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks guys

[25Horseplay]

That would be sweet if you can make it work!

[PaulLehr]

Looks good. Hope you can get it to work. Keep us updated on your progress

[htchbck]

anybody got a pic of the rear of a festiva tach cluster? I just realized that I can probably figure all that I need of the wiring from that without needing a wiring diagram

[WBBulldogs]

Wil has an article in his forum. He HAD pictures, but whatever site the pictures were linked to went down. If I were you I would try to PM him. Here's the link to the article anyways:

http://www.fordfestiva.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=4035

[ajb999]

if i remember i'll try and take a pic tonight. i've got one w/o the tach in my garage and the backs are basically the same. wiring is anyway.

[htchbck]

^^^ I appreciate the offer, but I really need a pic of one with the tach so I can see which wires goto what on the tach... I should be able to figure out the rest when I get my old cluster pulled and start working on it

[muscle_Car1]

Hope this helps.

http://s104.photobucket.com/albums/m193/muscle_Car1/Festiva/

[htchbck]

Hope this helps.

Helps? That does so much more than help... those are the exact pics I was looking for! I really appreciate it man... btw, nice car... can we see more pics of it? there aren't too many 4 doors running around here

[muscle_Car1]

nope thats not mine. I wish cause of the rarity factor but nope not mine. The "Running" one looks like sh!t & is awaiting me to finish up the transplant.

My the way tell me if this works. Cause I got a Escort GT in the yard(thats where I got my engine)



:roll: Then I'll have no use for the 110 mph speedo






:idea: Oh yeah the other car

[htchbck]

yep, BPs kinda make 85MPH speedos worthless... I wanna know how fast I'm going even after I get past 3rd gear :twisted:... I'll try to remember to take pics and document the process of making and wiring everything so I can attempt a write-up when I'm done

[muscle_Car1]

What trans you running?

[htchbck]

still beatin on the poor old stock tranny... over 180K on it... as soon as it blows I'm going hunting for an XR2 tranny though (G25MR cable clutch)

[muscle_Car1]

There's the one on ebay that i posted in the 4sale area.

[htchbck]

ok, I finally got around to starting my cluster today. I completely removed the back half of the festiva cluster which left me with just the trim piece and the front glass. Then I cut a piece of 1/8" plexiglass which will serve as the main face for all my gauges... it looks like this from the back...



then I drilled mounting holes and mounted on the tach and speedo to check for fitment...





it fits, though I didn't account for how far the trip odometer button sticks out, so I'll have to custom one of those up. Here it is mounted in the dash



Until I get a chance to finish up what I want printed on the face and find a print shop that can print adhesive transparencies I will be using those faces that were originally on the protege, but once I get everything done hopefully it will look professional... like it came with a 7K tach and 140MPH speedo from the factory...