i kno this question has been gone over but mine has been doing something else than discussed

the other day i came home and i looked at my fuel gauge and its peeged to past full. so i turn it off and on again and same thing, goes to past full.

i went inside for a little while and came back out to go somewhere and now the gauge wont move, stays below empty.

has anyone every had this happen and whats the best way to go about fixing it. i looked at the sending unit and the "ground" seems to be just a metal strap to two hoses?

anything i can do without spending too much money is appreciated

dustin

Ooops...your gauge sender or sender wire shorted to ground, full-scaling the gauge and burning it out.

You'll need to replace the gauge and fix the wire or sender.

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一期一会
Too many people who were born on third base actually believe they've hit a triple.

Not to steal the thread, but how?

My 75 scamp has a burnt gauge, about the same story. Replaced the voltage reg in the dash but still nothing.

Can I take the cluster apart and get new parts to fix it or what will work?

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1980 Aspen 225 super six

Remove cluster assembly from car.

Remove faceplate from housing.

Remove fuel gauge from housing.

Replace fuel gauge.

Reassembly is the reverse of the above.

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一期一会
Too many people who were born on third base actually believe they've hit a triple.

The same symptoms can be also caused by a bad ground of the 5V regulator or a bad 5V regulator.

A typical test light connected in place of a sender should read ~1/4 full and start blinking off & on at about 1 Hz after being connected for 5-30 sec if the regulator & gauge are OK.

Usually not without affecting both the fuel and temp gauges at the same time, since they're both run in parallel off the output of the 5v regulator. Since the OP mentions only the fuel gauge, and not the temp gauge, that's not the direction my diaguessnosis went.

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一期一会
Too many people who were born on third base actually believe they've hit a triple.

Temp gauge seemed to act crazy in conjunction with the fuel gauge. This did not surprise me because I had seen it mentioned on this forum that the worked of a common voltage.

Both gauges where dead before and after the new 5v regulator was installed. After installing a new 5v reg, I tried grounding the fuel gauge wire back at the tank to see if it would read full, but nothing happened, still flatline.

I guess that means something is wrong at the cluster. I just purchased a meter (I've been meaning to get one for several years)

Can anyone give me specific tests to rule out some possible problems so I can focus on fixing a part that I am sure is actually broken?

I know it's possible that I've replaced the 5v regulator with one which is also bad, so how do I verify it's working or not?

What kind of ground is required for the 5v regulator? It looks like it just plugs into the cluster?

Any suggestions would be better than me just poking blindly with a voltage meter.

I've always just learned to live with this kind of problems, but when the wife is driving around with our kid, we don't want them running out of gas in traffic some place.

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1980 Aspen 225 super six

OK, that generally happens when the 5v regulator sticks "on" and shoots 12v to the gauges, cooking them. They stop working permanently after that -- replace with good used. If you want to verify, once you've got the cluster out of the car, briefly put a 9v square battery (smoke detector type) across the fuel gauge and then across the temp gauge (each gauge has two pins on the back). Zero movement = cooked gauge.

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一期一会
Too many people who were born on third base actually believe they've hit a triple.