ok protege cluster question

[hofficergrover]

ok i did allot of searching and seen a few things about that they swap right in but i never seen what years it was that will fit right in. i was wondering if any one has done it and knows what years it was and what they did to do it? all the ones i seen have two spots for the odometer and want to know how they covered that up.
like this one i found on ebay http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/1992-...item3c9ba4d5ff

[muscle_Car1]

as far as I know they are way too wide to be a swap without the dash to go with it. I think you are thinking about the speedo swap the requires the internals to be swapped and have a new faceplate made up.

[hofficergrover]

Yeah, that's what I meant!
In one thread it was said that it was a direct swap, no fabbing or anything.
Just taking it apart and swapping the speedo.

[muscle_Car1]

i think festiva_tunner did it I'll look

[Festiva_tunner]

Yeah I did the swap - learned it from htchbck

It depends on if you have a white letered cluster or the orange lettered cluster
The orange is a direct swap in however you will have to mod the white lettered
You will have to make a custom face for both
I'm looking for the pics of mine and his
Heres mine:


Alright I found my build pics
This is the material you have to remove:

Not an exact fit but it works

the new spedo mounted


Still looking for the thread.

Here's another version someone did - htchbcks looked very similar


Found Htchbcks thread

http://www.fordfestiva.com/forums/showthread.php?t=7154&highlight=140mph+cluster

[hofficergrover]

awesome thank you very much. ok i got the white in the car but i have a 89 and 88 i think one of them has the orange. the orange is direct swap so i don't have to modify the white like you did right. also what year would be my best bet?

[muscle_Car1]

no you still have to modify it. his pictured one is orange. And you need a custom gauge face.

[Pu241]

Read this and PM him for details:

http://www.fordfestiva.com/forums/showpost.php?p=287788&postcount=5

[hofficergrover]

haha ok thank you

[hofficergrover]

ok so just do the cut in the plastic and then have a new face made ok so sounds like not to much work, but the new face i will have to get made.

[sasquatch]

i want to do this with the 323 cluster and change the face to white... unless there is another car that has a higher speedometer and the needle sits flat when you are not moving... i like it how all the needles sit flat when the key is off....

[Festiva_tunner]

ok so just do the cut in the plastic and then have a new face made ok so sounds like not to much work, but the new face i will have to get made.

According to htchbck he didnt have to cut any of the plastic away on his orange face - he still had to make a custom face though
He had mentioned that he had tried the white face but it did not bolt right in. So I took to the task of seeing if it would still work. I found that the protege speedo is deeper than the festy (mine was a 94 I belive). I cut the white plastic after removing the circuit board I originally thought i needed less and had just shaved it down but then the face plate would not lay flat. so I wound up removing the plastic entirely where the speedo bolts up. This is not a problem unsless you have to change the board or the guage. The only thing holding the speedo in this case is the board and the faceplate. I've been running mine for a year and a half now with out issues - My speedo is slightly off though so you'll want to compare yours to a speed gun or a GPS unit

****DISCLAMER: I do not sugest running as fast as you can past a sheriffs department speed check point machine ****

[festivaWES]

That orange cluster was mine. It had the mx-3 150 mph speedo installed.

[hofficergrover]

so are you saying that the mx-3 will fit? what year?

[muscle_Car1]

well there was only 1 model with a slight revision like 94 but the clusters were the same