Final Question! Fuse panel and/or dash removal

Okay campers.

Last question for the evening.   While trying to monkey with the parking brake I noticed that someone's been in there before me.

The fuse box is physically not attached.  I lifted it up and out and the screw mounts are snapped apart.  Now while I still need to track down a parasitic drain on the electrical system,  I'd like to see if it's possible to remove the entire fuse box from the '87 donor car and transplant it over to the '88.  I'll be in that neighborhood as soon as the snow melts to pull out parts.

And would it be possible to remove the entire dash board assembly?  All I've seen is people pulling it forward for heater core replacement.  I'd like to just remove the entire dash assembly.  (it only has 1 crack in it.  And we might consider exchanging it for the blue one that has several dozen cracks...)

That's it!  Well, so far.

Thanks again!!

S-

Okay campers.

Last question for the evening.   While trying to monkey with the parking brake I noticed that someone's been in there before me.

The fuse box is physically not attached.  I lifted it up and out and the screw mounts are snapped apart.  Now while I still need to track down a parasitic drain on the electrical system,  I'd like to see if it's possible to remove the entire fuse box from the '87 donor car and transplant it over to the '88.  I'll be in that neighborhood as soon as the snow melts to pull out parts.

And would it be possible to remove the entire dash board assembly?  All I've seen is people pulling it forward for heater core replacement.  I'd like to just remove the entire dash assembly.  (it only has 1 crack in it.  And we might consider exchanging it for the blue one that has several dozen cracks...)

That's it!  Well, so far.

Thanks again!!

S-

According to the documentation I have (Ford’s official Shop Manuals), the harness running from the fuse box...is the engine and interior harness. And, as you can imagine, it’s very large and long and complicated.

I mentioned a little while ago that I was converting my TC to all-LED (or almost all, as some lamps have no direct replacement). In the course of this I discovered my fuse panel apparently has a poor connection, as replacing the OEM turn signal flasher with a digital one “broke” that circuit, and it stopped working. My thought was, just replace the fuse panel. Researching it though showed it was all one harness. Ugh.

I was able to get the circuit working again—replacing the fuse panel was not an option for me, unless I wanted to cut and splice together a two dozen or more wires.

As for the dash board swap, there should be no problem with that. It would help if both cars had the same electronic accessory options available, that way you won’t have the puzzle of not enough or too many connectors in the harnesses.

In fact, perhaps this is a way to solve both problems at once! When you swap the dashboards get the wiring harness as well from the donor car and consider swapping that too. Keep in mind that harness also includes the engine wiring, so maybe that’s more than you want to get into. But it does seem to be a convenient solution.

Please, never hesitate to ask questions...and good luck, please update us how it’s going!

the harness do detach from the dashboards.
i swapped dashboard between my blue TC and my father wrecked,once mint, Tbird.
it was a weekend job. butcan be done. i left the harnesses in the cars when swapping.
and yes, fuse box it part of harness.
its rare to see one fully attached and the location was prone to get kicked by people with larger feet.

That’s part of the fun.  I have big feet! But didn’t kick it. LOL!

The ‘87 has both power seats (re:  other thread)  but it also has full electronic climate control.  So that might be a hard part.  The hvac in the donor car is empty.  The ‘88 still has a charge.  (Heater box would need to be swapped). I’ll hook my gauges up and see if it’s a full charge, or residual.