[caretta31]

Just bought a 2001 GT last week and I have a question about the gauges that are in the car. What did the factory gauges look like? Mine are white faced, did the PO change them to white faced? Now the real questions--the speedo is 5 mph slow according to my GPS and other traffic on the road. Also it read 10% off using mileage posts on the interstate. The fuel gauge low light comes on when the gauge is at 1/2 tank. I filled the gas tank within 5 miles of the light coming on and it took 13.9 gallons. The water temp. gauge starts at 1/3 with the car cold and then reads almost to H when warmed up. Never goes higher, just sits almost at H no matter what the conditions. The battery volt gauge is always near H with the car on, never varies. The oil pressure reads almost to H all the time and never varies with the car running. I don't have much confidence in these readings. If the PO put in the white faced gauges could he screw something up so the gauges don't read right??? My 1986 Ford Van has a ballast resistor that went bad and screwed up the gauge readings. Does this 2001 GT instrument cluster have a ballast resistor?? Thanks for any insight.

Jim

[sebastian]

hey, sounds like the person who swap gauges faces didnt know how he was supposed to do it, you have to pull the needles when you remove change the inserts, well you are supposed put the needles back on the way they came off when the car was off (no power to the gauge cluster) what the guy problably did on yours was set all them to the needle stops.... which is incorrect. as fixing the problem by yourself you would need all day and alot a patience and it still could be off. i think the only way you can besure is to take it to ford and have them calibrate the needles for you... maybe somone will have some other way but i dont see how... heres how it was suppose to be done...
http://www.mustangworld.com/ourpics/fcar/whtf1.htm

[caretta31]

Thanks Sebastian for the link to MustangWorld. It gave me a good idea with what I was dealing with. On my 2001 the headlight knob just pulls off without a locking clip, very easy. After taking the dash surround off I figured I could just take off the 8 T15 torks from the clear plastic cover and then play with the needles. It worked out great. I made a couple tiny pry bars to get the needles off and from there just a matter off reseting to proper place. I ended up driving the car around for about 1/2 hour to get everything warm and then set the needles on the temp., oil, and volt gauges. The speedo took about 5 tries. I am using a GPS to detect speed and I drove the car to 60 and then checked against GPS. Stop, reset needle, go 60, check again and so on. It took very fine movement of the needle to get it right. Now for the gas gauge, took a guess at where it should be and set the needle. Will have to wait until I burn off some gas to see if it is right. Set the tach needle for correct idle revs. Hope that will work with the tach. I will need to get an adapter so I can hook up my test tach to make sure. This all took about 1 1/2 hours and you don't have to take gauge cluster out or disconnect any wiring or battery. The only tools I used was T15 Tork, surgical needle holders (for putting the 12 screws in their place) and the homemade pry bars(Made them out of 2 DIN radio removal tools). Thanks again for the link.

Jim

[Rav3nRacing]

2001 Gt Gauges are Stock All Black with Green Lettering.
Anytime you are messing with speedo needles you are asking for a pain in the butt...can be done.

[FM2K GT]

lol like these guys are saying the previous owner must have been a crack pot.. first thing fill your gas tank up go home and take the cluster apart its easy you stick a small screw driver into the headlight knob in a lil opening on pop it off. take the 2 screws off on the visual upper portion of the pannel then just pop it off. now the gauge cluster should be exposed. theres 4 bolts holding the cluster in now in the upper right upper left, lower right lower left, remove them. pull the gauge cluster out and remove the 2 wiring harnesses in the back of the cluster, bring the gauge cluster out and take the 8 "golden" bolts out around the plastic and remove that, put the cluster back in without the plastic on it, reconnect the 2 harnesses dont tighten it down just lay it in there. next make sure you have a needle puller or 2 flat head screwdrives so you can ever so slightly pull the needles off. next start the car up and now that you know you have a full gas take remove the gas needle first and put it to full and push it back in far enough so its not touching the cluster so it moves freely, your car should idle around 700 stock unless he raised that with a tuner so set that, the temp gauge you can set if that car is cold set that to the left thicker line. my cars oil pressure when it was stock runs slightly over half at idle same with battery unless you want to take a volt meter and actually check it and see what the reading is so you can set it accuratly. as far as mph go get a gps system or somthing remove the speedo needle go for a ride down a straight away somthing slower like 30mph and put it on cruise at say 25 30mph and make sure it is 30mph according to your gps tracker and push the needle in slightly and make sure its in the right area.....Don't push to far on all these or they wont move and be very carefull with the needles or your can break the small motors inside the cluster, i hope this helped a little bit and this is the way i put gauge faces on for my friends 99-04 mustangs and they havnt complained about anything yet. so i hope you figure it out any questions pm me.

[FM2K GT]

stop bringing the old posts back.. i typed all that and found out it was 3 yrs old !!! dont do this nomore -.-

[Rav3nRacing]

HAHHAHAHAHaAHA

[Rav3nRacing]

I can not help your mother dropped you on your head as a child.