I am swapping in a 89 Ford 5.0 HO in to my 98TJ and was courious what people have done about their instrument guages? Is it possible to convert the stock cluster to Ford? Or could I just pull out the guages from the donor car and put them behind my instrument panel?

Let me know what you think. T:beer:

You can't use the existing gauges because they operate on a single buss cable. (Ahh modern electronics...don't you love 'em!)

You'll have to fabricate some sort of plug for the existing instrument cluster and populate it with Ford-compatible gauges or replace that whole section of your dash... As far as I know, there's no easy way to get the stock gauges to work with a non-Daimler Chrysler engine.

EDIT
I just noticed that you're down in the Cities... I used to live down there and the place I'd recommend that you talk to is Burnsville Off Road. They're very knowledgable about TJ engine swaps. It's down on the South side of Hwy 13.

HTH,
Jake Harsha

Are going to register it? I'd say not if you're putting an '89 engine in a '98 vehicle. I haven't lived in MN for 10 years so I'm not up on the laws there, but I know they're fairly close to CA's. And.... the year model is a federal requirement.

If you're not going to register it, only buy the guages you want to use and forget about wiring the rest.

Paul

Originally posted by nasvik
Are going to register it? I'd say not if you're putting an '89 engine in a '98 vehicle. I haven't lived in MN for 10 years so I'm not up on the laws there, but I know they're fairly close to CA's. And.... the year model is a federal requirement.

If you're not going to register it, only buy the guages you want to use and forget about wiring the rest.

Paul

The MN DMV came to its senses and discontinued exhaust inspections last year... That's not to say they won't start up again. Politicians around here being fickle as they are.

They only ever had the inspections in the Twin Cities are anyhow.

You have a point though... It makes a lot more sense to go to a newer engine for other reasons too (reliability, etc.). I think he should put a newer 5.9 Magnum in there... It'd solve his gauge problems too.

Jake

Just build a custom dash using aftermarket guages. You like spending money anyhow. That will keep the jeep expendiatures up for a few more months anyways. But really you should be able to get them to work. You'll just need to run the jeep sensors for the dash guages on the ford motor. These are usually seperate from the sensors that control the computer. So it may just be a matter of running a few extra sensors.

I guess that's what I thought.
In response to some of the comments made: I found a good deal on the 5.0 donor and I am, contrary to some peoples opinions (Knorr), trying to do this economically. I just can't afford a newer enging. Minnesota did discontinue emmissions, but even when they had them, I never had anyone actually look at my engine. They just did a sniffer test and looked under it with a mirror. I'll have to gamble on that one for now.

Thanx for all the advice guys. I appreciate it. Knorr, get back to work:p

T-Bone
1/2 Jeep
1/2 Ford

Maybe I'm missing something but...
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.
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...why not just adapt your Jeep's senders to the Ford engine?

When I did my 5.0 swap, some simple brass NPT fittings were all that was needed to attach the (89) Jeep senders to the (90) 5.0 engine. This meant that I didn't have to touch the dash wiring, period. You might want to check into this before you go ripping apart your dash.

Chris (thinking outside the box?)

Originally posted by cwate
Maybe I'm missing something but...
.
.
.
...why not just adapt your Jeep's senders to the Ford engine?

When I did my 5.0 swap, some simple brass NPT fittings were all that was needed to attach the (89) Jeep senders to the (90) 5.0 engine. This meant that I didn't have to touch the dash wiring, period. You might want to check into this before you go ripping apart your dash.

Chris (thinking outside the box?)

This is all you have to do. Use the jeep sending units and cut some of the harness for them and use it. Just check the schematics for the mustang wiring harness. Search the PBB there is a post with a lot of web-site on doing a similar conversion.

Craig