Thread: Gas gauge blues
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Old 05-02-2013, 08:06 PM   #16
luvbowties
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Smile Re: Gas gauge blues

Quote:
Originally Posted by 72 5500 View Post
Can anyone tell me what side of the gauge the pink wire is plugged into. On the Full side or the Empty side?
What color is the "other" wire? I'm guessing brown. If so, pink goes from fuse box to terminal closest to driver's door--Empty side; and brown from term. closest to pass. door, or Full side, to tank sender. **Please note: there just may be 2 brown wires in the dash area which should not be confused: one goes to fuel tank; the other goes to license plate light.**
Sam

The gauge-to-sender-wire can cause 2 problems. If it is "open", the needle stays on E all the time; if it is shorted along its route to sender at tank, it reads F all the time. Temporarily running a dedicated wire from gauge to sender(like straight from gauge, across back of seat, and to the sender) will eliminate EITHER problem. You then know what to do!

If problem persists after you have verified voltage to the + terminal, and run a dedicated wire, as described, to sender, then gauge is, as you apparently are already convinced, defective. In working on possibly 12-15 of these sixties-gauges over a number of years (from earliest in ~1975, to latest in ~2011), I've NEVER run across a bad gauge--just bad wiring, defective senders, and 'sinking' floats. In all these repairs, iirc I actually never bought a sender OR a float; all I recall were repairable, mainly curable via wire-repair or soldering. BUT I DON'T RECALL WORKING BEHIND AN EARLIER TRIAL-AND-ERROR EXPERIMENTER WHO COULD HAVE RUINED A GOOD GAUGE. Please do not think I am downgrading experimenters, as we all likely have learned untold info by doing so; but on electrical repairs, we can easily "smoke-test" a suspect component.

*You may learn a lot from reading this thread shown below. It shows problems, symptoms, and fixes--many which have been explained on here already, but which may lend credence to induce you to follow some new tips or ones already offered:>> http://www.stovebolt.com/ubbthreads/...84552&page=all <<.
Hang in there, keep us informed, and you 'and this forum' WILL get the problem turned into history!

Last edited by luvbowties; 05-02-2013 at 08:09 PM. Reason: 'emboldened' 2 terms
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