WHITE FACE GAUGE KIT INSTALL PAGE 2

Written by Mustangworld.

10. To remove the needles, use the two metal pieces (included in the kit) and gently pry them off. You took note of your needle locations while this was still in your stang right?.. good, otherwise you'll have a lot of calibration to do later on.
11. Here's the needle removed. NOTE: WHEN YOU PUT THEM BACK ON make sure you don't press them all the way down to the plate. if you do the needle will bind against the pod. Leave space for the needle to turn freely, don't push them all the way down when re-installing!
12. The speedo, tach and oil pressure ('96- on) pins simply pull out with your finger. make sure you don't loose it !
13. Now you can remove the plastic faces. They lift right off, (see our note about this on page 1). The new white face plates simply lay right onto the pod.
14. After you've taken each plate off, you can begin laying the white face gauges on top of the pod. Check for a perfect fit. As it turns out, our kit did not have a pin hole for the OIL PRESSURE needle pin stop, so we had to lay the old black plate on top of the white one and "poke" a hole in the new plate to accommodate the 3rd pin, which was not there in '94, but exists starting in '96. No big deal, it was easy, just poke it with an Xacto blade..
15. We also noticed that our main gauge plate "buckled" slightly when laid into the registration guides. So we had to take a hole puncher and slightly widen the top hole so the plates would lay flat and not "buckle". Check for buckling while re-installing the cover as well.
16. Lay in all the white plates, stop pins and install needles to locations recorded when your stang was OFF (not running). Find needle alignment THEN press down onto pod. DON'T "turn" the needle to the correct location AFTER you've pressed it down. Now you can re-install the clear cover plate. NOTE: you may need to pop this open again ! Even for the final install, once each of the 8 screws stops, don't tighten any more. The plastic will crack if you do.
17. Here's what your new white face gauges look like in the pod! SWEET ! We laid the old black faces above it.
18. Here's another close up of the gauges.

YOU ARE NOT DONE YET !!!! READ BELOW !

Here's what you still need to do:

Now take the pod back to your stang, plug in the two wire harnesses and "power it up", don't start your engine, but put your key one notch before starting it. Then check your gauges. 99% of you will probably have your TACH and SPEEDO needles reading 1000RPM and 10MPH respectively. This is because the needle is pressure loaded against the stop pins.

Power down... now you will need to REMOVE the plastic cover again (while your pod / gauges are wired in your stang) and also remove any needles that are not reading correctly like your SPEEDO, TACH, GAS or TEMP needles. Now, power it up again with these needles removed, (but don't start your engine). By powering the gauge pod you are returning the gauges to their correct locations, this way you can lay the needles to their exact positions you recorded WHEN THE STANG WAS RUNNING. Now you can lightly put the gauge needles where they are supposed to be (while the gauge pod is powered up), Lay each needle in place gently.

You don't want to press needles down while the gauge pod is powered up, you may damage your gauges, so just lightly put them on when it's powered up, then power down and press them on more firmly (but not all the way down! The needles still have to turn! )

At this point every gauge will now be set correct with the exception of the SPEEDO and OIL PRESSURE gauges. To set these you will need to start your Mustang. Go ahead and start it up and see where you had the OIL PRESSURE gauge needle set at (before) and place the needle in the correct position.

Now you have to correctly set your SPEEDO needle. To do this you'll need to have your buddy drive along side you at a pre-set speed (like 45mph) and see what your reading is on your speedo (cheap way).You can also go and get your stang "dynoed" and hope they don't charge you for the extra time you take to set up your gauges. You can also use a reverse ping radar gun (like we did) and get a digital calibration in your stang (they cost around $400 or so though). OR you can take your gauge pod alone to a Ford repair/performance shop and have them calibrate the speedo (most have a gear setup to do it in-house). You can also look around for one of those CHP radar speed checks, the ones that say "Your speed is..." and check it this way... ;-)

Whichever method you use, if you see that your speedo reading is not correct, you'll need to stop your Mustang, power down and Lift the needle off (with the special tools provided in the kit) and re-seat the needle back or forward. You may even need to remove the stop pin and set the needle way way down. When you've got the right setting, you can re-install the stop pin (which will pre-load the needle slightly, which is normal). This is a good time to adjust your speedo for those aftermarket rims you got! Chances are that even with the buddy method described above your speedo will be fairly accurate. As accurate as a stock speedo can get anyway.

We could have made this how-to shorter much earlier by just saying "Now re-install everything and your set" but we didn't want to leave anyone in the wind !

Generally, anytime you mess with the gauge needles, or replace your speedo or gauge pod entirely, you'll need to calibrate it in some way for best performance.

All in all, this install is not that hard to do with the exception of the light knob in step 1 ;-). Just MAKE SURE you recorded your stock needle locations (engine off and on). Your new gauges will be as accurate as your recordings were, so do a good job!

We are very happy with our new white face gauges, they look awesome.

Ok NOW you can re-install everything and your all set !

Til Next time... see ya on the street !

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