Well, I've had the car on the road for a little while now and all "seems" well, but I have noticed that my factory temp gauge is dead in the water and the fuel reads way high. So I built myself one of the solid state cluster regulators, tested it at the battery and steady 4.98 VDC.

I pulled my cluster swapped in a known good temp gauge, painted all the needles, reassembled and reinstalled. Upon start up, both gauges appear to be dead now. I tested the old regulator since it was out and it showed 12.78 (same as battery). When I reinstalled it the fuel gauge came up just as it used to, the temp still motionless, I pulled the connector off of the temp sending unit and grounded the lead and the gauge slowly moved to peg, it wouldn't do this with the old gauge.

My questions are:
Why would this fuel gauge not respond even though it has the correct voltage applied to it?
Have I narrowed the temp gauge problem down to the sending unit or could there still be another issue?

_________________
225 .030
.020 off the block .100 from head
Comp 264
904 Tranny
New Ebre-ting

http://s78.photobucket.com/albums/j103/edrod01/

Sounds like the temp gauge will be fixed, or atleast give some readings even if it is out of cal a little after you replace the sending unit. It is a VR that goes to ground so when you replace the gauge will try to fuction.

It is possible that the wire going to the sending unit on the fuel gauge is grounded somewhere. I may be thinking wrong on that, I havent had to fix a fuel gauge in a while. But either it is grounded ( wire running to float unit) or maybe the float unit ( fuel sending unit ) may be shorted.


I could have this backwords & and it is possible that the float unit is just open, or doesnt have a ground. You could maybe take the wire loose at the cluster to see effects & get a idea of how it functions for further testing. Grounding should make the gauge go empty, or full. You might use a very light fuss inline just for safty when testing the wire to ground.


Jess

Sounds like the temp gauge will be fixed, or atleast give some readings even if it is out of cal a little after you replace the sending unit. It is a VR that goes to ground so when you replace the gauge will try to fuction.

It is possible that the wire going to the sending unit on the fuel gauge is grounded somewhere. I may be thinking wrong on that, I havent had to fix a fuel gauge in a while. But either it is grounded ( wire running to float unit) or maybe the float unit ( fuel sending unit ) may be shorted.


I could have this backwords & and it is possible that the float unit is just open, or doesnt have a ground. You could maybe take the wire loose at the cluster to see effects & get a idea of how it functions for further testing. Grounding should make the gauge go empty, or full. You might use a very light fuss inline just for safty when testing the wire to ground.


Jess

Well I reinstalled the regulator that is just passing 12v so I can have some idea of fuel level.
I bought a new temp sender and installed as soon as I switched the key, I had motion on the gauge. not wanting to burn out the new unit I put in the S/S regulator that I built, and voila...I have temperature monitoring. Still no fuel gauge with this reg installed.

My conclusion is that this fuel gauge had worked on 12v for so long that it will no longer respond unless atleast 9 volts are present...How can this be?

_________________
225 .030
.020 off the block .100 from head
Comp 264
904 Tranny
New Ebre-ting

http://s78.photobucket.com/albums/j103/edrod01/

Hi

Did you remove and test the fuel sender unit?

Corrosion - water in fuel - could cause a oxide layer to build up, and cause lower readings through higher resistance - in my case the the fuel sender rheostat plate some how had corrosion over 3/4 the swept arc - so it shows empty until 1/4 is left, then it works

_________________
Regards,
Fanie Gerber
It's never junk, it's just a part you're not currently using

http://www.valiant50.co.za
Just say I own a few Mopars