I'm new on here but I have been reading and searching for mods of interest and have done quite a bit to my truck. I bought a 2006 STX basic manual everything regular cab. Basically because I was married and bought the wife and kids a Suburban. Well as things would have it, my wife decided to leave after I paid everything off. Of course I got stuck with my plain truck. I am proud to say I've overcome some of the pain of separation by playing with my truck. I'll get around to listing my mods and upload some pictures when I have more time.

I'm here to say that most instrument clusters will swap out without any programming. There is only one thing that is annoying me right now, And that is that my dome light doesn't come on when I open the door. When I get out after driving it it comes on and delays and goes out though even if I turn it on manually, it eventually goes out after about 5-10 minutes. I started out by installing custom leather seats. Since then, besides playing with my engine I have converted my boring 40/20/40 seating column shift grey interior to a two seat, center console black harley interior console shift. All of it was time consuming, but a pieace of cake. I can tear the interior out of my truck in about 20 minutes and put it back together in about thirty. I kept my seats they were grey leather with carbon fiber insert Katzkins (got all the parts for song and dance), dash, console, door panels, interior trim and all. I've swapped my styleside bed to a flare side. I am thrilled to find out that just about everything swaps right out. I am now in the process of wiring it all up. I have this one question. I have been wiring things up by studying the wiring diagram book I bought off ebay (what a blast) I am confused about the importance of the accessory delay relay because my truck didn't come with one. I think I've gat a plan to wire one up. Do I need to do that? Is there an easier way? or i should ask another way?

 

this relay

are you talking about the 10 minute timer that kills the dome lights and radio?

 

I'm not sure what it is. I just want to know if I should wire up an accessory delay relay. The dome light thing is a result of me changing my cluster to an FX4 cluster. And the radio does go out when i shut off the key. Do you know a way to fix that?

 

I didn't size my picture, so here goes again

 

resize your pictures please...they're ginourmous

but yeah, every F-150 from the base model to the King Ranch is supposed to have that 10 minute relay. It is run by the Inst. Cluster.


So since you replaced your XL Inst. Cluster with that FX4 one, you really should visit the Dealership and have the cluster custom flashed to work with your truck.


That is why your dome light doesn't come on, and why the radio, interior lights, headlamps don't stay on when you turn off the motor.

 

worry about pics later

 

What's it good for?

 

The Accessory Relay is a battery saver.

it counts down 10 minutes, then kills power to all of the accessories.



in addition, it controls the radio, interior lights, headlamps, mirror lights, and something else that I cannot remember right now...it activates when you kill the motor.
also, it does the same thing when a door is open. after 10 minutes, it kills the power to the interior lights to prevent a battery drained from a cargo light left on




is it needed: Not at all

kind of nice to have: very much so

 

Get your cluster reflashed with as built and the done will work correctly, all that stuff has to do with the cluster, my done used to click right off now it fades in and out with the xlt cluster