was the 88 gt available with a 140mph speedo?

[GREYFOX4INCH]

the reason i ask is because my 1988 gt has a 140mph speedo in it and i thought the 88's still had 85mph speedos in them.

if so does this mean all the gauges (INCLUDING MY ODOMETER) is not origional?
the odometer reads 65,000 orig miles, it would suck to find out that ive been screwed over by a simple dash cluster swap from a different car.
thanks.

 

[Daggar]

Came with an 85 MPH speedo, so far as I know.

 

[GSXRMIXXER]

i think so. i say that because i was pissed when my 88 GT came with the 85MPH cluster. i have the 140mph just waiting to be swapped into place. My 89 had a 140mph but not the 88 both were GT's and untouched

 

[LtDavis]

It wasn't until late '89 when Ford started using 140 speedos, all '90-'93 5.0s had them

 

[GREYFOX4INCH]

ok so now the question is: can the speedo be converted from 85 to 140 without swapping the odometer? all i care about is if the miles are incorrect.

the car is realy clean and in great condition but its strating to burn one leggers instead of posi, and my check oil light comes on A LOT!
I would not think that a well kept car with 65,000 miles should need new rearend clutches and be burning so much oil(although it doesnt really smoke very much)
i think its vave seals not piston rings thats causing this?

 

[Roland69]

my 88 has a 180



















































But Im also in KM's lol

 

[trbkrb]

The only way it could be "original" is if it is a Ford Motorsport speedo. Some dealers put them in for new owners, and they were available from the parts counter for 87-88 cars. Most likely it was replaced at some point with a 89 speedo, and the speedo and odometer are one unit. You could try to pull it and check the part number and maybe see what year it could be from. Oh, and you might get a carfax on it to see if the mileage is accurate.

 

[AZNEAL311]

Ive had 2 88 Mustang Gts. My vert. had and 85mph speedo and my 88 hatch which I have now has a 140mph speedo.

 

[GREYFOX4INCH]

Ive had 2 88 Mustang Gts. My vert. had and 85mph speedo and my 88 hatch which I have now has a 140mph speedo.

SO..... what the heck. do you have any way of kowing (or prooving) that your hatch came fresh out of the factory with the 140mph speedometer?

"LtDavis
It wasn't until late '89 when Ford started using 140 speedos, all '90-'93 5.0s had them "

^ if thats a solid fact then i am gonna have to do a carfax or pull out the cluster to try and match of serial numbers or somthing.
my gut tells me there should be a serial # right on the cluster itself to help prevent odometer fraud.

I bought this car out of New York State(out of state) and the title did not even have spot to put in the miles, so it seems pretty simple to swap the cluster from a wrecked 90-93 and sell the car for a nice thousands more then the car is worth!

 

[RsStanG1987]

SO..... what the heck. do you have any way of kowing (or prooving) that your hatch came fresh out of the factory with the 140mph speedometer?

"LtDavis
It wasn't until late '89 when Ford started using 140 speedos, all '90-'93 5.0s had them "

^ if thats a solid fact then i am gonna have to do a carfax or pull out the cluster to try and match of serial numbers or somthing.
my gut tells me there should be a serial # right on the cluster itself to help prevent odometer fraud.

I bought this car out of New York State(out of state) and the title did not even have spot to put in the miles, so it seems pretty simple to swap the cluster from a wrecked 90-93 and sell the car for a nice thousands more then the car is worth!

Most Fox mustangs are exempt from odometer status anyway because it dosent have the 6 digit odometer. So car fax will mostlikely not help you at all. My car had 63k and when i got it titled in PA and FL they both made it exempt.

 

[Mustang5L5]

'88 was a 85MPH speedo year.

The ONLY way an '88 Mustang could come with a 140MPH speedo is if it was a SSP Mustang, and in that case you will see "certified calibration" written on the bottom of the speedo.

The 140MPH speedo first appeared on mainstream Mustangs in late '89

The odometer is part of the speedo, so if you swap one, the odometer will be different.

You can match the miles, but it will take some time to do with a drill on the speedo input.

View attachment 425292

 

[GREYFOX4INCH]

thanks. i just checked and it does not say "certified calibration".

its pretty ****ty that i just realized this now.
i guess it is very possible that my 65k mustang is actually a 175k car.
that just makes my day, can you detect the sarcasm?

thanks for the info though, i guess my next step is to see if a carfax can help me out. if not, then owell

 

[Mustang5L5]

Carfax does keep a record of milage when car is inspected.

WHo knows, maybe the previous owner was like me. I converted my '88 to a 140MPH speedo and spend the time sitting there with a drill to match up the milage exactly. It's not that hard, but some people don't care....and some do.

 

[AZNEAL311]

I did a CarFax on my 88 hatch and basically they said the Odo. was tampered with because it only had 40k miles. It actaully had 140k, odo. rolled over. And just to clarify I said I had an 88GT Hatch with 140MPH speedo, not who or when it was installed. I have not taken the dash apart far enough to inspect it more closley(not a big fan of dash work) but it looks all original. For all I know the previous owner replaced the whole cluster with a later model Fox. If so I couldnt tell. I dont remember where or even when I heard this, so it might just be someone talking out of there @ss but I heard verts,notchs had 85mph speeds as well as most Hatchs but some hatches had 140s. I dont know and to be honest I never really gave it much thought up untill now. everyone seems to agree no 140s till 89 and I have yet to have this forum steer me wrong.I will have to look into it now out of pure curiousity.

 

[sgarlic]

It's a simple swap to put a 140mph speedo in there. I did it 3 or 4 times on my old 88 til I finally swapped a correctly calibrated speedo in to it. You can swap the whole cluster, or swap just the speedo. It's very simple.

Anyway, rolling the mileage to correct mileage is easy with a dremel tool set to high.

 

[Mustang5L5]

It's a simple swap to put a 140mph speedo in there. I did it 3 or 4 times on my old 88 til I finally swapped a correctly calibrated speedo in to it. You can swap the whole cluster, or swap just the speedo. It's very simple.

Anyway, rolling the mileage to correct mileage is easy with a dremel tool set to high.

Yup, it's really not that difficult to do. If i ever sold my car to someone, they would have no way of telling I did it. I just swapped the speedo mechanism into the original cluster, and then spun the speedo to the right mileage. Other than the fact that '88's didn't have a 140, you would think it was factory

 

[MikeC]

You can match the miles, but it will take some time to do with a drill on the speedo input.

View attachment 424948

You can tap out the end of the silver shaft with the small white gears, reset the mileage to what you want, realign the small gears and tap the shaft back in. Takes 10 minutes. Take a pic for reference to get it back together correctly.

 

[Mustang5L5]

Nice, i just tried it and reset my speedo to 00000.0

It's a brand new car!!

 

[GREYFOX4INCH]

but the point that realy matters is that there is NO WAY what so ever for me to know the accurate millage of my car.. am i wrong?

 

[Mustang5L5]

Unless you find the guy who installed the speedo and ask him what the miles were of the original and the miles on the 140....then yes, no way to know.

Did you do a carfax? MAss inspection stations note the milage when you get a sticker. You could look at the milage and see if there is a pattern where it rises slowly of if there is a period with a big lead or anything odd