Gauge Light Hookup

I bought the White Face Indiglo Guages from www.streetracerparts.com These guages have an inverter that needs power off the Head light switch.

I have two wires to splice in one for Power and one for Ground..

Ground is pretty obvious..

Power, I believe needs to be into a wire that controls the Guage Lites from the light switch... (so not constant Power)

Could someone help me figure out which wire to splice into on my 1989 Cougar?..

These white face guages are the 145 speedo ones...

I replaced my 120 speedo with a 145, every thing seems to be working wonderfully so far... now I just need to get these 2 wires spliced so I can get my dash put back together..

I have no test equipment to check for voltage, this is why I am asking someone for help..

Thanks a Million in advance..

Karl

Use your power wire from your guages as a test light. Just hook up the ground for the guages inverter, strip a little portion of the wires in your headlight switch, one at a time, and touch your inverter power wire to it. When you guage faces light up you will know which one is powered. I think it is brown, but I can't remember for sure which one is powered with lights on. Oh, and make sure the power wire you hook up to gets power when the corner lights come on, not the headlights. Know what I mean?

XR7 said:

I bought the White Face Indiglo Guages from www.streetracerparts.com These guages have an inverter that needs power off the Head light switch.

I have two wires to splice in one for Power and one for Ground..

Ground is pretty obvious..

Power, I believe needs to be into a wire that controls the Guage Lites from the light switch... (so not constant Power)

Could someone help me figure out which wire to splice into on my 1989 Cougar?..

These white face guages are the 145 speedo ones...

I replaced my 120 speedo with a 145, every thing seems to be working wonderfully so far... now I just need to get these 2 wires spliced so I can get my dash put back together..

I have no test equipment to check for voltage, this is why I am asking someone for help..

Thanks a Million in advance..

Karl

Click to expand...

there's a turqoise wire with a red stripe behind your headlight switch. that's your running lights. you can tap into that since you want your gauges to be lit up when the running lights are on just like stock. there is another way to hook them up behind your headlamp dimmer/timer switch like darkside mentioned. both ways will work.

Tap the brown wire, about 16-18ga, coming from the headlamp switch. This is the parking lamp wire. I do all gauges this way without any problems.

Compatability question

Hey XR7, the Guage kit that i see on StreetRacerparts.com says i fits onto 94+ model T-Birds. I see you have an '89 Cougar, does it fit well? Do you think it would fit on a '93 T-Bird SC?

Porabowl::: 89 - 93 SC's came with a 120 MPH the 94 -95 SC's came w/ a 145 MPH
Your speedo should be the 120 MPH, so the 94 wouldn't be an accurate one. They should also have a 120 MPH set

guys i think you over read when he wrote

"I replaced my 120 speedo with a 145"

so now he has a 145 speedo
for those of you that i guess might not know u can just swap out to a newer speedo.

Here's a bit of info to consider also. Not all 120 mph speedo's are the same. Near as I can tell 89-90 have the 60mph mark at 12 o'clock exactly. 91-93 have the 60 mph mark one 5mph increment to the left, roughly 11 o'clock position. The needle at rest starts at different speeds on the two. You need to compare the guage set with whichever type you have as one set won't fit both types. John

speedo

I actually was looking for a newer speedo, possibly a 160 mph one if they make one. I know i could ugrade to a newer one i was just wondering if the gauages are in the same design in the newer SCs as the old ones, and what would i have to do to make the newer speedo work properly? Also, does the guage kit on streetracerparts.com illuminate in different colors? i was lookin for blue....

speedo question

I heard that along with a guage kit should come a few wires that i supposedly have to splice into the computer to make the guages read correctly, does something like that come with these kits and if so, how would i install that?

SuperCoupeSC91 said:

guys i think you over read when he wrote

"I replaced my 120 speedo with a 145"

so now he has a 145 speedo
for those of you that i guess might not know u can just swap out to a newer speedo.

Click to expand...

Thank you SuperCoupeSC91 for clearing that up..

Yes that is correct I replaced my 120 with a 145. This is how I got away with ordering the Guages for the 94-95. And yes they look Great.

Car is in the shop this week, getting motor mounts replaces. I will get some pictures when the car is back.

Karl

AnnivSpeCpe said:

Here's a bit of info to consider also. Not all 120 mph speedo's are the same. Near as I can tell 89-90 have the 60mph mark at 12 o'clock exactly. 91-93 have the 60 mph mark one 5mph increment to the left, roughly 11 o'clock position. The needle at rest starts at different speeds on the two. You need to compare the guage set with whichever type you have as one set won't fit both types. John

Click to expand...

Hi John,

I just wanted to make a statement about my experience with this. Yes on my 1989 Cougar, the 120mph speedo had the 60 mark at the 12 o'clock position.

And when I put the 145mph speedo (from a 95 SC Cluster) the 60 mark is now at roughly the 11 o'clock position.

This had me concerned, when I was doing 60 it didn't really seem that I was doing 60, so I ran a Test....

Local Police had a speed display up on one of the roads here. I simply waited till about 11:30pm on a weeknight. drove by the speed display with my cruise locked on exactly 60 (you could set cruise in 3rd or 4th Gear to insure you will maintain 60 for sure) and the speed display read exactly 60. so I did this test again at 30mph and 90mph. They were all 3 accurate. I was pleased.



Porabowl, I see you are looking for a newer speedo, Might I suggest that you find one from a 94-95 Thunderbird SC out of a Salvage yard. and as for the wire kit into the computer to compensate for a different speedo, I know nothing of that. and also don't think it would be a good idea.