1994 Ford Ranger Cluster Swap

[mtnrgr]

Yea I was aware of what was needed to make it more of a direct swap would have to be 93/94 year model, but whats availible at the local yard is a different story. Wasnt aware of the explorer not having a 3.0, thats just what it was listed on the upullit website v6. I figured they could be interchangeable just with some wire swapping, but couldnt find a good example of the 92 explorer pinout for the cluster.

Then after I posted everything I found out that I was being too smart for my own good, overcomplicating things and realized that I could just compare the traces for all the pins on each one and had the 94 cluster pin diagram.
A full day later was able to get everything laid out un pinned the connections and repinned them to match up from function to layout and extend 1 wire from each side to swap the side they plug into and got it all working. Als
Also had to resolder all the connections on the tach and slosh mod.
Heres some photos

This is great it's working. Removing the wires to repin the plugs is a smart way of doing it. I had a similar issue around 15 years ago. My old friend had a 91 3.0 5spd ranger, some of his gauges were acting up. I went through that truck from front to back and side to side..ranger is mechanically good as I did alot of repairs to it in time he had it.

I did find the gauges were bad, speedometer, tachometer, working great. We couldn't find any 92 and older explorers or rangers in the junkyards..mainly 93-94 rangers and explorers.

Tried the 94 cluster and it didn't work, instead of doing the repin the plugs. I put the 91 cluster housing back in and used the speedometer, tachometer, and all other gauges from the 94 cluster, it all worked great.

Not all the tachometers have those adjustments. I've seen them more on 89-92. Many 93-94's don't have those.

 

[mtnrgr]

I don't recall ever seeing a 4 cylinder truck that had a tach but I haven't seen everything. Curiosity more than anything on my part. I have a 6 cylinder gauge cluster in my V8 swapped truck and it's way off but that is all 1st gen parts.

Ford did a few 2.3 5spd rangers with a tachometer, it was an extremely rare item that ford had done. Mainly during 93-94 rangers. Not sure about 89-92 or 95+...personally i believe all rangers should have come with a tachometer from the assembly line.

 

[wsanfor]

This is great it's working. Removing the wires to repin the plugs is a smart way of doing it. I had a similar issue around 15 years ago. My old friend had a 91 3.0 5spd ranger, some of his gauges were acting up. I went through that truck from front to back and side to side..ranger is mechanically good as I did alot of repairs to it in time he had it.

I did find the gauges were bad, speedometer, tachometer, working great. We couldn't find any 92 and older explorers or rangers in the junkyards..mainly 93-94 rangers and explorers.

Tried the 94 cluster and it didn't work, instead of doing the repin the plugs. I put the 91 cluster housing back in and used the speedometer, tachometer, and all other gauges from the 94 cluster, it all worked great.

Not all the tachometers have those adjustments. I've seen them more on 89-92. Many 93-94's don't have those.

Yea that would work if you started out with a cluster with the tach and swap out other parts mine didnt have one so I opted to find one with one and make it work.

I live in fay arkansas and we have a upullit it here but there are so many people around that if you dont get there the first few days something comes in it gets picked clean of all the usable parts.

Only have so much funds and all the clusters ive found online are 100$+ and not always in that great of shape so finding one at the parts place for like 40$ had to grab it up.

Ive pretty much drove manuals for all the vehicles ive owned over the years and things are so much easier to work on when they have a tach takes out alot of the guess work.

I have a love/hate realationship with my truck there are a bunch of things that are easy to do to it and then things that you think should be simple are way more complicated then they need to be.

 

[tinman_72]

Glad you worked it out.

Like Shran, I’m curious about the tach reading. The cluster from the 6cylinder vehicle is now only seeing pulses from a 4cylinder engine.

That was true for old school coil ignitions with distributor. Newer vehicles use the signal sent from ICM to tachometer which is once per revolution not per cylinder.

 

[rumblecloud]

Sure that would be helpful. Thanks

I have to apologize. The cluster I have does not have a tach.

 

[scotts90ranger]

Sorry I'm late to the party but yeah, the break is mid '92 and you can tell by the circuit color but I don't remember what is what...

The cluster in my '90 is from a V6 of some form, don't remember as I swapped it in in like '01... the cluster in my '97 is from an Explorer, I agree on the signal as Ford must use a filtered signal to send to the tach as cylinder count at least '89 up doesn't matter.