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Wed Mar 17, 2004 9:43 pm

I tried hooking up my fuel gauge tonite and the needle went up all the way to full (only have a quarter tank.) I started to try and screw the mounting in a bit further and at one point it seemd to register correctly for a second then went up to full again and the wire (hopefully not the gauge itself but couldn't tell) eventually started smoking and i got a nice little burn pulling the wire with melted insulation.

Does this sound like a grounding problem or somthing else? Do i just need to try and dig it in and screw it in tighter?

Wed Mar 17, 2004 10:13 pm

Wow :shock: I don't like the smoking hot wire issue. That does not seem right. My fuel gauge used to register empty or full depending on whether the headlights were off or on. I ran a separate ground wire and that solved the problem. Never did I have a hot smoking wire though. That's definatley not good.

Wed Mar 17, 2004 10:23 pm

is the guage the righte voltage? if so i would check for a short.
i have the same problem with a old chevy temp guage,
and cant seem to find the problem.

Wed Mar 17, 2004 10:36 pm

6v gauge will work with a 12v sender. The sender is based on resistance, not voltage, therefore it'll work. I think that's how it goes.

Thu Mar 18, 2004 1:59 am

It is a 6 volt gauge on a 6 volt system.

Could the type of wire make a diffrence?

Thu Mar 18, 2004 2:16 am

Sounds like the hot wire is getting pinched under the mounting clamp and shorting out. Is it the hot wire smoking? Nothing on the sender side of the gauge should smoke anything - that wire goes to ground through the sender anyway so if that side shorts out the gauge just says it's full.

No, the type of wire won't make a difference.

Thu Mar 18, 2004 7:35 am

Quote: Sounds like the hot wire is getting pinched under the mounting clamp and shorting out. Is it the hot wire smoking? Nothing on the sender side of the gauge should smoke anything - that wire goes to ground through the sender anyway so if that side shorts out the gauge just says it's full.

dstefun is correct. Your hot wire is grounding out on something, causing the smoke. Just make sure it is connected properly and not touching the housing of the gauge. Also, the wire that goes to the sender needs to be connected cleanly also. If it gets grounded to the body of the bus by accident, it will register the gauge as full. This is a good way of testing the gauge to see if it works, which sounds like yours does. Just recheck your wires.

Thu Mar 18, 2004 1:44 pm

Thanks,
I will rewire it tonight double checking the hot wire. What you said sounds right, the sender wire looks fine.

Thu Mar 18, 2004 7:52 pm

I re-wired the gauge and it works when pluged into a hot wire but it dosent work when pluged into the speedo(as far as I can tell the correct place for it.)

From what I can tell from my wiring diagram the hot wire from the ignition switch plugs into the bottom of the speedo and the gas gauge wire plugs onto the top (the only 2 non lightbulb plugs.)

Am I missing somthing? Do I need a jumper wire from the top to the bottom? I figured this was built into the speedo.

Thu Mar 18, 2004 8:12 pm

The fuel gauge is normally fed by a black wire that starts at ignition switch terminal # 15 and then goes to speedo lights gen, oil, & turn before going to the fuel gauge. Those three lights are not grounded to the speedo case and each have a second wire going elsewhere. If you want, just run a separate wire from #15 on the ignition switch to the hot side of the fuel gauge and forget the speedo connections.

Thu Mar 18, 2004 9:01 pm

Works!
Thank you.
-=dan=-

Fri Mar 19, 2004 12:59 pm

great thread! my gauge always pegs to full as well. now i know what to look for!

Sat Mar 20, 2004 9:41 pm

TURBO_G if your gauge is pegging full when you turn on the lights the body of the gauge is not grounded, take the gauge out and clean the back side of the dash where the bracket touches so it will get a clean ground.