TfcCDR

The mechanic who takes care of our 2000 mustang is working from a 1998 Ford factory manual.

Should this be a concern? He points out that manuals are expensive, with prices somewhere between "Yeow!" and "Are you INSANE?!" and my predecessor told him "later" every time the subject came up.

Is there enough commonality between the two model years to stay with what we have, or do we need to get the 2000 book?

dawson1112

Its not a big deal with general mait...

A good mechanic should only need a factory service manual for reference material. A good example of when a 2000 fsm would be needed is any time he would have to dive into the wiring harness. Different years used different color combinations of of wires. Each years fsm would have pages of detailed wiring diagrams , along with the proper pin out of every plug in the car. Since the colors change from year to year it is difficult at best to track down wiring with out the correct year fsm.

OH and just an FYI, a set of used fsm can be bought for around 175 bucks. That's not that bad .

I once had to repair a 98 chevy venture mini van that had no power to the pcm, I had to go to a my local chevy dealer and ask to reference there 98 fsm to look at the pin out of the pcm and find the correct wire. All other years used different colors and different pin outs.

TfcCDR

No, $175 isn't too bad. From what you're saying, though, there's not much point in spending the money if he's got the 1998 fsm, especially if we can get wiring diagrams.

FYI, the wiring in a cop-conversion is usually a mess anyhow, after adding the disco lights, siren/PA/airhorn, radios, vehicular repeaters, antennas, electric gun locks, battery chargers for various equipment such as flashlights, HTs, etc . . .and a Q car is even worse, because as much of the stuff as possible has to be invisible (it's a lot easier just throwing in consoles, mounting light bars and punching holes for stuff like antennas).