Installing Cruise Control

From 3.8Wiki

Originally Posted by mach6mustang
http://www.3.8mustang.com/forum/showthread.php?p=3117561#post3117561

I'm a newbie to the forum, but I saw your thread, and thought I'd add my 2 cents.

As it happens, I've just finished installing the factory cruise control kit in my 2000 'stang, so here's my take.

First, about my kit. I bought the kit on ebay for around $50, including the shipping. That was ALOT cheaper than the $260 I'd seen them on the net for, and ridiculously cheaper that the $700 a cruise control shop quoted me to supply & install the kit. The kit I got works for the 99-04 models.

The factory kit consists of basically 5 components: the steering wheel with switches, the servo or actuator, the brake pedal position swith, the clutch pedal position swith, and the cables to connect the servo to the throttle. There are two cables because the kit works for either the v6 or the v8. The kit is available with the tan/saddle, graphite gray or the black leather steering wheel, but is not available with no steering wheel.

The car is completely wired for cruise, right down to the clockspring in the steering column, so installation is simply a matter of bolting on the parts and plugging in the connectors. Sounds simple, but the instructions with the kit really SUCK, so it helps if you're good at figuring stuff out.

The servo installs behind the front left side fender liner, on the door post. Again the connector is there, waiting for something to plug into. Easy enough. The cable to connect the servo to the throttle is also pretty straightforward, all the bracketry is already in place. The longer cable in the kit is for the v6, the shorter one for the v8. Sounds kinda counter-intuitive, but there it is.

The clutch pedal swith, if you need it, bolts onto the pedal bracket and connects to the waiting electrical connector. This is very simple, and is basically idiot proof. It can only go one way, even I could'nt screw it up.

The brake pedal switch, though was a different story. I am living proof that installing that piece is NOT idiot proof. Again, the kit instructions were virtually worthless in this regard. The swith is a plastic piece with a plunger that hooks onto a post on the brake pedal on one end, and an attachment pivot point that attaches to the pedal bracket on the other. The switch is closed when the plunger is fully extended, and this is the normal driving position. Stepping on the brake will push the plunger, opening the circuit, and deactivating the cruise control servo. The switch is adjustable by completely pushing the plunger into the swith, until the part with the hook is completely up against the body of the switch.

It took me a couple of weekends to finally get the switch installed properly. First i installed it with plunger pointing towards the front of the car, so that pressing the brake pulled the plunger out of the switch. That was how I figured out that the switch was closed when the plunger was fully pulled out from the switch. I got back under the dash, and found the correct pivot point hole on the pedal bracket, which was on the firewall side of the bracket. (I told you I was an idiot!). It took me another couple of tries to finally get the switch adjusted properly, but when I did, it felt great to see the system working.

The cruise system uses three circuits from the fuse box: fuse 17, connected to pin 9 on the servo connector, fuse 33 which powers the brake pedal deactivation switch, and fuse 35, with powers the cluch/transmission deactivation circuit, as well as inputs from the powertrain module. If the car is a automatic, there is a jumper that bypasses the clutch switch. I think this is in the tranny electronics, and is factory installed since it did not come with the kit. The cruise swithches are powered from the horn relay circuit in the battery junction box under the hood. If the system doesn't work after installation, check the three fuses to make sure they are good. I had cannibalized one of them at some point, and the circuit was dead. By the way, the instructions show the cicuits as fuses 6, 9 & 35. May be a model year difference, but seems stupid.

I know this was kinda long, but I had to figure all this out myself since I could not find much on the web to help. Maybe it'll save you some time. I'm thinking of writing up a "how-to" for this since there was so little, and it's basically pretty easy, at least in hindsight.