On the back of the cluster, directly behind the odometer there is a divided, 8 pin connector that is nowhere in any of the wiring manuals. Does anyone know what this is for? Nothing wrong with it, just curious and wondering.

 

It might be for programming the cluster/odometer? To be honest I'm not sure how they do it usually.

 

Yeah, I don't know. I would expect something to be in the wiring manual about the connector though??? Pats is in the wiring manual but in most shop manuals there's a missing chapter and distribution of manuals with the chapter in it was limited. I think time and common knowledge has passed that once limited availability by.

Although I've never heard of this on any Ford, there are some manufacturers that have secondary odometer hidden in the electronics that's used to verify the accuracy of the odometer. VW for example uses a secondary odometer reading in the ECU. VW says if the two readings are within 10% the odometer reading is good. I've also heard of some ECU's that have a partially scrambled serial number where the serial number changes certain digits every so many miles. IIRC Porsche does this where the digits change every 10,000 km and the digits showing identify the number of 10 km's to match to the odometer.

I'd like to know what it's for just to know. Programming or calibrating the cluster is as good guess as any other.

 

Is it part of the gauge cluster itself? The only plug I can think of is the white plastic connector with brown wires. It plugs onto the cluster PCB. That is to display mileage on the cluster. Other than that... I'd need pictures.

 

Rivers...I'm as lost as they are above. 99-03 cluster is smooth on the back, but the 97-98 sort of fits your description. Look at these two pics. Which do you have

 

In the top picture it's the divided connector in the upper left that's right behind the odometer. From following the wiring manual there is nothing to match that connector. Like I said though, I have no problems with it, I'm just curious about what it is.

 

That looks like the plug that goes to the led panel for the digital odometer from the main cluster board.

 

This would make sense just because of the location of the connector. What started this is I can't find this connector anywhere in the wiring manual. Beyond just this, on the cluster that started all of this for me, where the plastic bar that crosses over the plug the bar is halfway covering a pin. It's hard to see how a plug would fit in to the connector with a pin blocked.

I've removed a cluster at least 10 times but never really payed any attention to the plugs. It was while working on fabricating an insert for a different cluster to fit in to the OEM cluster space that this connector caught my attention This is why I relied on using the wiring manual to figure out what is going on with the wiring connection. By just following the wiring diagram connector numbers to the individual connectors there is nothing that matches this connection of 8 pins. So again, this isn't about anything being wrong or anything in need of fixing. I'm curious about what the connection is for and how it's used. There are proprietary connections in the manual where information is left blank or starred but I can't even find this much for the connection in the manual. It could be that the plug\connection is associated to something other than the cluster that I didn't find. It would seem that something would show up for the cluster though since it's located on the cluster. Hell, I don't know? I'm just guessing about possibilities. It's also possible I'm missing something that should be obvious?