Hello

There is a very large class of people that own 65/66 Mustangs that, as far as I can tell, anyway, have been, for the most part, ignored entirely. They don't really want that 100 pt. show car that is so nice and was soooo expensive that they're afraid to drive it, they also don't want to make their car capable of achieving warp factor three. They just want this car that they dearly love to be able to cruise around smoothly and reliably, without having it dump them out on the side of the road or have it start making weird noises or belching out big clouds of funky-smelling smoke. And I think, truth be told, that this is by far the largest class of Mustang owners. They take their car to some technician when what they actually need is a mechanic, and this, frequently, does not work out very well at all for the owner. They don't want to re-engineer the entire car, they just want someone to fix what broke. These are the people that I am trying help out with this blog. Some problems require a little bit of back and forth, as in, "Try this." "I tried that and it didn't change anything."
" Oh. well, you probably need to try that." " I tried that and it helped, but it still isn't quite right." "Now you need to try this...." If you go to http://www.allfordmustangs.com/ and then go to the classics forums, you will be able to do that with a pretty hefty gathering of some very knowledgeable people that also happen to be very friendly. None of that ridiculous one-upmanship, no flaming or abuse, none of that stuff. Just good, solid advice from people that know what they are talking about.

Saturday, August 17, 2013

Turn signal wiring and back-up lights for 64 1/2 Ford Mustang

The turn signal wiring for the 64 1/2 cars is a bit different from what you find in the 65/66 cars. It isn't very complicated, though. Power starts out at the ignition switch. From there a black wire with a green stripe goes to the fuse box, which has a fuse marked "14A Turn". From there, a black wire with a red stripe takes power out. That wire ends as a female bullet connector about 6 inches above the fuse box. This bullet connector has two wires coming into it, one being the black/red wire and the other is an orange wire with a yellow stripe. The orange/yellow wire is taking power from the black/red wire over to the turn signal flasher. From the flasher a blue wire goes to the turn signal switch, which distributes the flashing power to the appropriate lights when activated. There is a black/red wire plugged into the female bullet connector which goes to the neutral safety switch on a car with an automatic transmission, or, to the back-up light switch on a car with a manual transmission, and, from there, goes to the back-up lights. It should be noted that back-up lights were an option that cost an extra $10.40, so, an awful lot of the 64 1/2 and 65 Mustangs did not  come with back-up lights.

9 comments:

deo1929 said...

I've got to figure out the backup lights for my '68 with the swap from the C-4 to the Tremec 5 speed. Those wiring diagrams come in handy.

Veronica said...

If you could let me know which Tremec you have, I would be happy to make a diagram for you. I have all of the original diagrams for everything that Ford built between the beginning of the 64 model year through the end of the 69 model year, and have done the swap from an automatic to a tremec in a 68 a couple of times. It's been a while, but, it should still be rattling around in my head somewhere.

Unknown said...

I have a 65 Fastback (sn 389632) that is one of the later manufactured cars in 65 (I think). When putting the horn ring disc onto the steering column so that it touches the spring loaded contacts for the horn and then connecting the battery there is a "popping" or "arc sound" such as a short coming from under the center dash area. Without the horn ring disc installed there is no issues or sounds. Do you have any suggestions for where I got sideways? This is a new under the dash wiring harness.
Thanks!

Veronica said...

A lot would depend on what type of steering wheel you have. It sounds like you are talking about one of those wood Grant steering wheels, in which case, that would indicate one set of potential causes.If you have the standard as-original Mustang steering wheel, it would be an entirely different set of possibilities.

Bill said...

My vin is 5R07A250210. How can you figure out the actual build date? I know it was the 250210 vehicle produced at the San Jose Plant in 1965, but would like to know the date. Thanks for the help!!

Veronica said...

The scheduled production date of your car would have been about 30U, which is July 30th of 1965. Hope that helps.

Unknown said...

Veronica,
I have a 65 Mustang that I acquired about a year ago from my mother in-law when my father in-law passed away. I'm still learning what's right and what's wrong about the car.

The front parking lights/turn signals appear to be wired backward. It's my understanding that the bright filament in the bulb is for turn signals and the dim filament is for parking lights. Mine is the opposite and you can't see the turn signal flash when the parking lights are on because the parking lights are too bright. If you take the amber lens off you can see the dim filament flashing and the bright filament is steady. It seems to have the correct bulbs. How would I go about fixing this?

Looking forward to more advice from this blog,
Mark

Veronica said...

Hi Mark.
Your understanding of how those lights are supposed to work is correct. I'm having a little trouble figuring out a way for someone to make a car do what yours is doing without cutting any wires, though.I think that I would start by tracing the wires from the parking lights back to the firewall to see if someone has indeed cut the wires and switched them around.

Unknown said...

Thanks, Veronica, I'll try what you suggested.