Hi,
I have a 1978 Mercury Zephyr Z7 that I bought recently. The car, a very clean one with 302 & auto C4, has only 56,000 original miles (sat for the last 10 years, with only a few starts on a monthly basis). I am doing some maintenance and little upgrades to make it a daily driver.
I noticed a couple of "burnt" 194 bulbs on the gauge cluster and proceeded to remove the cluster to do so and check and clean the printed circuit board (PCB). Well, the 194 bulbs were not burned, but the holes retaining the bulb holders are eroded and thus not making contact with the PCB. The back half of the instrument cluster (aka the cluster backplate) is so brittle it literally falls apart touching it lightly. Conversely, the front panel (i.e. mask) and lens, and gauges (the simple kind with speedometer, fuel gauge and idiot lights), and the PCB are in great shape. The part number of this cluster backplate is: D8BF-10848 1$
Attachment 131901
The same thing happened to my 1979 F150 years ago, and I was able to get a new reproduction cluster backplate (from Dennis Carpenter) and easily transferred over the front panel and gauges to it, reusing the PCB.
Does anybody have a good leads where could I buy a cluster backplate that fits this simpler gauge cluster with idiot lights (maybe from a 4cyl and 6-cyl Mustang 1979-1982)? I suspect there is no way to make a good contact of the bulbs with the PCB without relying on a good shape backplate hole?
Thanks for any tips/suggestions!
Raul
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