Thread: Amazing Discovery about Ford F1 Gauges.

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I was replacing a gauge on my wifes 70 Ford F100, and the gauge looked familiar. I took one of the gauges out of my 52 cluster and it looked exactly the same, except for the face and the mount. I went to the junkyard and picked up an instrument cluster from a 69 F100 with a V8. After removing the face from both the 52 gauge and the 69 gauge I saw that both were the same except the 69 was 12 volt. You only need the FUEL, TEMP, and ALT. The F1 BAT gauge is a wire feed through type and reads amps not voltage, so it should continue to work

Very carefully remove the faces from the F1 gauges. Work at the bottom of the needle side. Just raise the bent corners that holds the face and slide it off. Do the reverse to put the F1 faces on the F100 gauges. Now unbolt the mountings on the back of the F1 gauges and mount them on the F100 gauges. Now you have 12 volt gauges for your F1 without the expense.

There is one setback for the 51/52 F1's. One of the 51/52 gauges is reversed. On mine it was the TEMP gauge, The new gauge reads backwards. I fixed that by scratching off the C and H and reversed them using a fine point Magic Marker.

OMG, you've discovered Ford's secret. Now they will kill you.

Thanks for the info Lakota, gotta file that one away for someday!!!

Oh sure post it now, 5 years after I got rid of my last 51-52 Ford project trucks.

Great info.

Originally Posted by Mike P

Oh sure post it now, 5 years after I got rid of my last 51-52 Ford project trucks.

Great info.

Me too, but I wasn't going to say it that way!!! Thanks Mike!!!!!!

I thought you Ford guru's knew about those kind of things. Once Henry found something that worked, it stayed around in one form or another practically forever.
The 73 F-100 I sold about a year ago had a very butchered shift collar on it when I got it. I had an extra 66 Mustang column sitting around so I took the collar off the 66 and with a little massaging it adapted quite easily to the column on the 73. It was hard to tell it wasn't factory.

Ford used 6 volt gauges from 1930-s to 1955. In 1956 all gauges were 12 volt. In 1957, and up to the 90's, Ford gauges were all 6 volt again. They used a (1) voltage regulator for all the gauges. You can see on every instrument cluster a little electrical thing-a-a-ma-jig, about 1 1/2 x 3/4 inches in size - this is the voltage regulator. Sorry to report this, but thats what Ford did.

Originally Posted by NTFDAY

I thought you Ford guru's knew about those kind of things. Once Henry found something that worked, it stayed around in one form or another practically forever.
The 73 F-100 I sold about a year ago had a very butchered shift collar on it when I got it. I had an extra 66 Mustang column sitting around so I took the collar off the 66 and with a little massaging it adapted quite easily to the column on the 73. It was hard to tell it wasn't factory.

Well, I'm not the Ford Guru, just one of the Go Fast Ford Guys!!!!

I knew about the voltage regulator domafloppy on the instrument cluster, threw it away when I put all the Autometer gauges in my '71!!!!!! No voltage problems with these gauges!!!!

It seems that some Ford guys think that little 1 1/2" X 3/4" doomaflochet called a CV Regulator is a 12 to 6 volt voltage reducer. If you look inside you'll see a wire wound copper strip, just like the one in a flasher unit. All it's supposed to do is break the connection if too much current goes through the wire, like in a voltage spike.

Originally Posted by lakota

It seems that some Ford guys think that little 1 1/2" X 3/4" doomaflochet called a CV Regulator is a 12 to 6 volt voltage reducer. If you look inside you'll see a wire wound copper strip, just like the one in a flasher unit. All it's supposed to do is break the connection if too much current goes through the wire, like in a voltage spike.

Has anybody done a voltage check on in and out of these CVR's - Don't want to argue the point but the CVR's are supposed to reduce voltage according to Ford and most people who have had experience with them. Ford has also said that the gauges are 6 volt (except 56). I know with the CVR, my 6 volt gauges (54 Ford) work great with 12 volt conversion. Never tried it without the CVR and I don't intend to.

I'm surfing the internet this morning and came across this topic. The guages in my 51 Ford are not hooked up because I went 12 volts with the hipo 289 transplant.

I'll get a CV regulator today from the junkyard.

Thank you for the tip.

I;m finishing up wiring a customers 55 ford f100, used the ford cvr and it worked fine,other than the gauges reading backwards " I presume thats because it was a positive ground 6 volt system ?? " simply removed the gauges and blacked them out & re lettered... The crv works much like a signal flasher and you can see an ever so slight tick in the needles.

In my 48 Chevy pickup, I used all the guages but one on the 12 volts without a problem. The guages are in a box where they have been for ten years so I can't remember exactly what was what. But the fuel guage for sure worked on 12v the Oil was mechanical, the amp guage worked, (just didn't go as high as with the 6V) and the water temp was replaced with a S-W INSIDE the original cluster. It did go backwards because the thing was up side down in the cluster. But I just remembered that and it never bothered me.

Brian