Club 80-90 Forums

I know this subject is very common and may have been covered already but please bare with me. My dash needles have never worked, apart from the odd few mm twitch from the temp gauge. I went out and bought a new regulator from maplin today for £1.04 as I tested mine and it was only providing .3 volts. I have changed it over following the wiki and tested it with the multimeter. Wired the dash back in and left the van to warm up. Went back out 15 minutes later and neither gauge had even twitched :@ I cleaned up both earth crowns last week so i cant think what to check next.... :S

Any help would be gratefully appreciated folks. I have a fair few long trips to come once I've welded the front back together and would like to have working gauges.

Have you tested for 10 volts with the dash installed in the van? Sounds from the above that you tested while it was off the vehicle.

And just to confirm, you did mount the new reg "upside down" didn't you, with a nut or summat under the "tab" to make up for the ~5mm gap between it and the circuit board ?

Tested on the van, and mounted the new reg flipped over and then tested back on vehicle and got 10v. Has me stumped

If you start with the fuel gauge (as it is the simpler of the two).
You should be able to get to the two terminals of the fuel gauge with the pod fitted in the van.
So you should be able to measure your 10 v on one of the terminals (as I think you have already done);
Now try grounding (briefly) the other terminal (using a length of wire between the terminal and any convenient bit of vehicle metal) - the gauge needle should swing towards the full side while that terminal is grounded.
Try that and let us know what you get?

10v t both guages. Both react to being earthed so that's progress... I think.
.

You just need to start tracing those wires back to their sources (the sensors) then and figure out where the break is - at least you know that the gauges work ok ...... keep searching!!

I should probably check the sensors actually work...... lol fuel tank was empty for nearly two years so that could be fudged.....

JamesKT25 wrote:I should probably check the sensors actually work...... lol fuel tank was empty for nearly two years so that could be fudged.....

Easiest way to check is to earth the lead from the sensor. If the wiring is intact then you will get full gauge travel and points to faulty sensor.

If nothing happens on gauge then as before - will be wiring . Start checking the joints - think there is one in the black box in engine bay and possibly another below dash.

I have a T25 1.6 TD. The fuel gauge was working just fine and all of a sudden it packed up. All other gauges work fine.

It coincided with the tank getting very low, and it is now stuck on empty, so I wonder if either the needle or the tank gauge might be stuck rather than there being an actual electronic fault. Perhaps the tank was low, I was on a hill and the needle got wedged in the empty position? Has anyone had any experience of this?

Thanks

stuartgpalmer wrote:I have a T25 1.6 TD. The fuel gauge was working just fine and all of a sudden it packed up. All other gauges work fine.

It coincided with the tank getting very low, and it is now stuck on empty, so I wonder if either the needle or the tank gauge might be stuck rather than there being an actual electronic fault. Perhaps the tank was low, I was on a hill and the needle got wedged in the empty position? Has anyone had any experience of this?

Thanks

When ignition off the needle will go to below empty anyway so don't worry about running the tank low wedging the needle.

Does it move at all when ignition is on? If so it could be the sender is faulty/jammed. Earthing the wire to the sender should make the gauge show full (with ign on of course). If the needle does not move at all and stays to left of the orange then it may be problem in the wiring but follow steps earlier in the thread to rule out the gauge.

Been playing with my dash today i noticed something odd. I followed the track of the feed for the temp gauge. It leads to the fourth connection of the multi plug, where there is no cable.... :S

Temp gauge should go to pin 6 (red/yellow wire) - and on your pic there looks to be a red yellow wire in that pin posn.
(Fuel gauge goes to pin 7 (violet/black) which looks to be there too).
Are you sure that the temp pcb track goes to pin 4? Are you sure that it doesn't do a late 'jink' under the connector to hit pin 6? Can you check continuity from the guage terminal to the red/yellow wire?