1992 (or previous) F-series dash question

[MasterM00SE]

I have learned the hard way that a charging circuit is no circuit if you don't complete it. On Saturday, we camped out in Gettysburg to go to the dyno... later that day we switched out the dash gauges in the nightmoose to those of a diesel (remember it was gas...it didn't say diesel fuel only). Now, I realize that I was loosing charge...at first I thought it was the alternator...now I realize that it was because there was no alternator indicator light on the dash....Hence, No Circuit....Duh! My question that I pose now is what year is the dash that I have (if it doesn't have the indicator). Any ideas??? mabey a 92???

 

[tractorman86]

wow i thought all of them had indicators... what about just putting a resister on there till you get the right dash

 

[icanfixall]

My dash is an 89 and it has a volt gauge and a lite to tell me its not charging. The lite is a little red battery on the lower left side of the dash. Hope this helps some.

 

[Mat J]

If you have a 3g alt take the green/red wire and run it to key on switched 12v. If you have a 2g alt take the green/red wire and run it the same but put a 500ohm resistor inline.

 

[Agnem]

We did an extensive study of the wiring diagrams and compared his truck and original dash, with the Lady Moose. What we found was pretty interesting. There was no air bag option in 1993, so 1994 was the first year for the air bag. The 93' dash, has no idicator at all in the 3rd position on the right side, and the battery indicator light is in the middle of the lower left cluster of lights. Because of the air bag on the 94', they moved the air bag indicator to where the battery indicator was in 93' and put the battery indicator in the vacant spot on the 3rd position right side. Consequently, and as a result of Ford moving 4 wires in the harness to acommidate this, Matthias now has no air bag fault indicator, or battery charge failure indicator. What he really needs is a dash out of a 94 IDI. Until he finds one, we will have to go with a hot-wired alternator and hope he doesn't wreck. I never would have dreamed that swapping out a gauge cluster would prevent the alternator from working. We were all ready to swap out the 2G alternator, when I decided to check for key on voltage just in case. We gave that failure mode about a 2% chance of being the problem. Sure was glad we checked!

 

[pafixitman]

94 IDI won't have the bag option. That was only on the half ton.

 

[snicklas]

Would the instrument cluster in a newer OBS F-2/350 work. Or was the F-150 OBS a different dash than the F-2/350? The Fire Department has a 96 F-350 that has an airbag....... But it is running a PSD, would that be a problem in it being a different dash?