Instrument Cluster Confusion

[first mustang]

Hello out there,
As a first time Mustang owner, I've owned a ton of G body Cars, I bought a 79 Pace Car Edition, cheap but rough. as it'd been parked for 25 or more years.
From what I understand a 79 to 86 instrument cluster will work? I guess my question is, does it matter if the cluster is out of a V6 or V8 car?
Mine is a 302 automatic car. I've seen around 9 for sale but need to do the right thing.
Thanks for anyone's time or suggestions as I don't know much about Ford's

 

[broncojunkie]

Welcome to the site! There are some differences in the clusters for different years but for the most part, the clusters will interchange from 79-86. The main issue is with the tach. The 4-6-8 cylinder tachs were all different. They'll still work, but won't read correctly if they're used on a different motor. A couple years, there was a switch you could set to match the number of cylinders. I can't recall which years but I'm thinking early 80's. You can use the higher turbo 4 cylinder tach with a v8 if you install a certain resistor. I plan on doing this at some point, since the v8 tach only goes to 5500 or so.
Another difference is the design of the gauges and color of the lighting.

Is your cluster missing or what? Just curious if maybe it's just not working. I may have some ideas for a fix if that's the case.

 

[first mustang]

Thanks for your reply. No not missing just rusted to death on backside and circuit board is cracked. As we've bought a couple, both didn't work, we noticed that some circuit boards are one piece green in color and the back of some instrument clusters has two. One green in color and one in copper color - half of it overlaying the other. We did find one exact as my original even the part numbers on the back are the same. But it is weird some have one overlay and some have two.