Originally posted by Bucknaked
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Naturally Ford did not have any instrument clusters available anywhere, and they won't order anymore. They get extras made, when the clusters are made for the production line, once those are gone, that's it. It does not matter what type of vehicle you drive or what you paid for it. When they run out of clusters, there are no more, they won't order any more. I have dealt with this since the 90s, we used to have problems with the digital clusters in Lincolns, when they were still under warranty, we would get told, there are none available and there will not be any available.
I tried to find John that used to have Ziener Electronics years ago, it took months, I finally found a John in San Antonio, I contacted him, he told me what I feared, since it was not a GM product, he probably could not do anything with it.
Then I did google searches. I found a lot of companies on Ebay that repair instrument clusters. 90% of them repair about 10 different types of GM clusters, some repair about 50 different types of GM clusters. Then I found I think four or five companies that repair certain Ford clusters. Of those, I think I found two listed that repair my generation of Ford truck clusters. Then all of those companies, repair only certain types of problems with those specific clusters they do repair. So I contacted those two companies, one never replied the other guy did reply. I don't remember who that guy is, but I would highly recommend him. He told me right off, there was two parts that could cause the problem I was having, one of those two parts, he could replace, the other one, he could not do anything with. I had to pay him up front, send him the cluster. Then about four days later he called, said that there was nothing he could do with my cluster. So he sent the cluster back and refunded all of my money.
My truck has a manual transmission, trying to find a 2002-2006 gasoline, manual transmission, 4X4, cluster is a royal pain. I don't remember if the V10 makes a difference or not. I finally found a used cluster in a truck similar to mine, but that truck was an automatic truck. So now I have a transmission temp gauge, and my dome light stays on all the time, then the seat belt light it on, all the time. I had to remove the bulb from the dome light. I need to find the correct cluster for my truck. But I don't have gauges and lights wigging out the whole time the key is on, anymore.
I spent over two years, trying to get my cluster fixed or find another one. I have not done anything with the cluster in four or five years.
You are just beginning in your frustrating search for a cure, for this cluster. Hopefully you have better results than I did. The fact that JD actually has clusters available, you are doing better than me. I was willing to pay quite a bit to get a new cluster for my truck, they just flat were not available, other than used. Most junk yards, don't know which clusters will interchange, all of the specific options related to the gauge cluster than are important, to getting a cluster that works correctly. Ford had trouble with their GEM modules prior to 2002, they started using GEM modules in 1997, in the F150s and Expeditions, then the Super Duties in 99. I have replaced a lot of GEM modules in Ford trucks. Well in 2002, Ford decided it would be a good idea to put the GEM module in the instrument cluster, then the idiots, did not order a bunch of extra instrument clusters for the 2002 and newer trucks. Those idiots should have known, there were going to be a lot more clusters needing to be replaced, since they put the GEM module in the cluster. Nope, they did not order any more clusters than they normally would order for those vehicles. Which they always run out of clusters for a specific vehicle inside of 3 years of production.
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