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Dash harness question for gurus/people who have swapped...

September 24, 2011, 04:19:18 PM

I've got a Sport, it's an '88, obviously....well I replaced the dash harness with one from a member here, but there's a difference in the engine end of the connections. down on the driver's side frame, there are 2 connectors, one gray, and one black...the harness I have in the car now has the gray connector, and the pins/sockets match, however, the black connector on the dash harness side isn't there..it appears to have a lug ring that would go to the positive side of the starter relay on the inner fender. I compared the two harnesses side by side....it seems that the black connector accomplishes the same thing in regards to the power being sourced at the positive stud on the starter relay.

AFAIK, the new dash harness came from an '88, also the seller stated that, so I'm rather certain that's all correct.

Basically I just want verification from those who have encountered this that this will be fine to put power to and not fry anything.

I'll post pics here in a few of what I refer to...

So the question is....would there be difference in the two dash harnesses...the stock Sport harness has everything, premium sound, EQ, EATC, sentry...the works...it was a pretty fully optioned car...whereas the harness I got from Jon was more stripped down, less options..he said it had premium sound and that was about it.

TIA!

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Dash harness question for gurus/people who have swapped...

Reply #1 – September 24, 2011, 05:23:06 PM

Ok, here are the pics:
This is the replacement harness, from an '88 Cougar LS:


This is the connector of the stock '88 Sport harness:


the ring terminal wire colors inside the Cougar dash harness are both yellow, one is a bigger gauge than the other, though:





On the Sport harness, from the black connector, the pink/orange wire goes to position 6 of the cluster connector.

The Yellow and the black/orange wires go to the fuse panel.

The yellow/red wire goes to the defroster switch.



Am I going to need to pull the black connector and it's wiring out of my stock harness and put back in the car for the fuse panel to have power?

What about the pink/orange cluster wire? ( haven't looked in the cougar cluster connector to see if it has that wire, since it was a digital speedo car, it needs modded as it is..)

I'm pretty certain that none of the wiring from these cars is truly plug-n-play, unless they come from identically optioned cars....ughh.

I just don't want to end up with all this (or more) work done, and my electronics don't work.

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Dash harness question for gurus/people who have swapped...

Reply #2 – September 25, 2011, 11:14:35 AM

Hey Sport, The eyelet end goes to the starter relay to power circuits that have a constant source of 12V+.

I'm not sure what that 4 pin connector from the thunderbird is in your hand.  The thunderbird and cougar should both have the 8-pin black and 8-pin gray plugs near the driver's strut tower.  Your engine harness is original 88 tbird sport?

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Dash harness question for gurus/people who have swapped...

Reply #3 – September 25, 2011, 12:39:01 PM

Yeah...I thought that the eyelet end went to the relay, was just double checkin' :)

The stock Bird harness has the black and gray connectors near the shock tower/brake master as well as the ones by the frame rail, it's original. I figured that the differences may be due to such options as the ATC, the sentry, and such..

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