SO... Just to follow up on this here... I found that my gas gauge has the regulator as part of it. SO to get my gauges working again I would need to find a new gauge... OR.. I found a way to build a solid-state regulator for about $8 from Radio Shack. I think I found it on this site... I dunno. But it takes 12V and regulates it to a rock-solid 5.1V for the gauges. I did this and hooked it up and still nothing from the gas gauge. When I grounded out the wire to the fuel sender the gauge went to the "F" line and worked fine.
SO, I pulled my sender to see if the problem was there. OH WAS I RIGHT!
I found that not only did the float have about 4 holes in it, the part of the arm that has the little tab on it that brushes up against a coiled wire which tells the gauge what "level" the gas is in the tank was completely broken into pieces and worthless.
So, I got out some sand paper, flux, solder and my soldering iron. Fixed all the holes in the float, soldered the tab back on the non-float side of the arm, bent the tab to point to the right place on the coiled resistor wire (so the gauge would read correct) and popped it back in.
It works like a charm!! Gauge is properly regulated and tank sender is repaired and reading proper. All for the cost of $8 and about 3 hours of my time.
My temp gauge however got fried when the regulator in my gas gauge went out. So I have to get another one of those. Unless anyone knows the proper resistance that the coiled wire on the arm in the tamp gauge is? If I could get what the resistance is supposed to be I could bypass the old fried coiled wire??? Just trying to make this truck work with my wallet size. 
-Marc
|
