1965 1966 Mustang gauge Replacement

The gauges that Ford used in these cars were so incredibly durable, it is very unlikely that you would ever have to replace one, but, occasionally, you could buy a 65/66 Mustang and then discover that one of the gauges has been damaged somehow and needs to be replaced. Fortunately, this is an extremely easy task to perform successfully. First, you remove the instrument cluster. I did a post on how to do this (also very easy) in a post back in April of '08. Once the instrument cluster is out, put it face down on a soft surface, so that you don't scratch up the instrument bezel, and remove the eight phillips head screws holding the bezel onto the cluster. Then you lift the cluster off of the bezel and put the lens back in the bezel if it falls out. Then lift that black metal thing off of the cluster. You then take a 3/8 wrench and remove the two nuts holding the gauge in place, and save that paper-looking thing that the nuts are holding onto the back of the cluster. Those are extremely important because those are what prevents the gauge from just shorting out on the cluster. The old gauge will now fall out all by itself. You just place the new gauge in the cluster, put the insulator back on, put the nuts back on, making sure you don't crank down on them so hard the nuts cut through the insulator, and reassemble the cluster, black metal thing, bezel and lens. There are a couple of cardboard tubes in there that are also important. Those are what keeps the whole side of the cluster from lighting up and flashing every time you hit the turn signals. There are three little prongs that hold each of those tubes in place while you reassemble everything. It really is just that simple.

1965 1966 Mustang Seat Belt Warning Light

Here's what the light looks like on the dash, along with a quick sketch of how it's wired. There is a green wire that plugs into the accessory feed, which is behind the instrument cluster. It will be a three prong, female plug. That green wire splits into two green wires, one of which goes to the light on the dash, and the other goes to the switch relay. There will also be a violet colored wire coming out of the light, and it also goes to the switch relay. The relay grounds itself out on the body of the car.

1965 1966 Mustang Books

A question that seems to come up on a fairly regular basis is "What books can I get that will tell me how my Mustang does the stuff that it's supposed to do, and how can I fix it when it quits doing what it's supposed to?" There are many, many books out there about the 65/66 Mustangs, some better than others. At the top of the must-have list is the appropriate year model shop manual. That's the book that Ford wrote for and gave to the factory trained mechanics that worked at the Ford dealerships, and were responsible for fixing these cars when they broke. Ford also put all of the wiring/vacuum diagrams in another book that they also sent to the dealerships. These two are essential.
You will, no doubt, notice that there is no 1964 Mustang Shop Manual, instead, there is a 1964 Comet and Falcon Shop Manual with a 1964 Mustang Shop Manual Supplement. How that works is pretty simple. On all of the stuff on the Mustang that is the same as on the Falcon, like the engines, for example, you use the Comet and Falcon book, while all of the stuff on the Mustang that is different from the Falcon, that's in the Mustang book.

There are also books that have a whole bunch of good, general information about the Mustang. These aren't critical, but they are very interesting. TThe book by Kevin Marti about the tags is useful when you are trying to decode stuff on your car, like the rear axle ratio, or trying to figure out how this car actually came from the factory.

There is no one book that has everything that there is to know about these cars, or, any single book that includes no errors. And yes, that includes the shop manuals. Even they have some things in them that are wrong. Fortunately, the errors in the shop manuals are so trivial a person could use that book for years and never stumble across one of those mistakes. But, this is why I have hundreds of books and Ford publications. It has always been my opinion that knowing is better than not knowing. That's merely an opinion of mine, a values call, but, it is the values call that I made. So, the more information I have available, the better. You can not possibly have too many books, especially about something that you care about.