Gauge and wipers issues...

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Alsdartgt

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With all the drama I caused with the 318 or slant 6 post I made a few weeks ago...I have decided to keep the 225! Now I have a couple of problems. I think I know the answer but I need HONEST opinions!
1st. I have a 3speed wiper motor, the wipers are very slow to come on, park or change speed, Ground problem, switch or motor?
2nd. The temp and fuel gauge are erratic as heck! Temp gauge sweeps all the time! Fuel gauge is "working" then buried below "E"! I fought this problem only to end up replacing the instrument board due to broken studs. I think the IVR is failing. The temp sender is new and the fuel sender seems to ohm out ok. Be honest and any advice will be a great help! :violent1:
 
The wiper motor cold very well be the ground, I would stert there.
The Gauges sound like either a ground or the IVR is going.
 
These troubles could be a LOT of thngs

WIPERS

Could be a bad motor, bad connections in the BULKHEAD CONNECTOR, bad connection at the fuse panel, bad connections at or a bad switch Could be too much friction in the linkage and wiper shafts -- a common problem

GAUGES It's probably time to FIRST overhaul your cluster and then work from there.

My 67 has TWO circuit boards, and so some of the circuits have to "jump across" from one board to the other

Loose broken pins on the connectors

Poor grounds between the boards and the cluster

Poor ground between the cluster casting and the body

Poor connections at the limiter "socket"

Poor connections AT THE GAUGE STUDS

Take everything apart and clean the cluster casting. Take something like scotchbrite and buff clean the copper pads where connections are made, the gauge studs, lamp sockets, etc

Solder/ replace/ repair the connector pins. Mine were so bad I abandoned 'em. I just soldered wires to the copper traces and ran them off to a "Molex" style plug I bought from Radio Sh$$

The limiter socket. Mine has three brass fingers and NONE of them made reliable contact with the PC board. I soldered the brass to the board. You may want to do so by using short lengths of jumper wire.

And of course the limiter itself is suspect, either build yourself an electronic one (Google) or buy one of the aftermarket electronic replacements

Gauge studs. Replace the fake nuts with real nuts, probably would not hurt to use star washers. Clean the pads under the studs, and use a tight/ loosen /tight motion to "scrub" the connection clean.

Cluster ground. Put a pigtail wire under one of the cluster case screws, about, say a foot long. Put an eye on the other end, drill a hole in your colum bracing behind the cluster and ground it there.

Other problems with the gauges are poor connnections IN THE BULKHEAD CONNECTOR, bad connections at the sender end of the wire, and bad/ improper/ damaged senders.

You can ruin a temp sender by overtightening it.

The fuel gauge sender MAY NOT be grounded. Clamp or solder a wire to the fuel nipple coming out of the tank, and run a wire over to the body, grind it clean, apply some dielectric grease, and ground it. The factory "grounded" them with a clip on jumper that went around the rubber connector hose. (Rhetorical) What makes you thing the supply tubing is better grounded than the tank? It's rusty, just like the tank. Underside of the car is rusty, just like at the tank!!

Other than the above, the tank sender could be a poor quality repop (prevalent nowadays) the wiring up to the gauge could have a bad connection. (Clean the rear harness connection in the "kick panel." Remove the kick panel, find the harness connector, and disconnect/ reconnect it several times to "scrub" the connectors clean. Examine with a light. "Feel" how tight it is. Then put some dielectric grease on and reassemble.

YOU CAN CHECK both sender wires. Pull it loose at the tank, clip lead it to a GOOD ground, then go up front and pull the wire loose at the gauge, and check on your low ohms scale.

Same thing on temp sender.

DON'T DISCOUNT that one or both of the gauges themselves could be out of calibration.

You can check the fuel gauge for rough calibration by substituting resistors for the sender.

Redfish can correct me, but I believe these values also work for the temp sender

The values are

L = 73.7 Ohms (empty)
M = 23.0 Ohms (1/2)
H = 10.2 Ohms (full)
 
With all the drama I caused with the 318 or slant 6 post I made a few weeks ago...I have decided to keep the 225! Now I have a couple of problems. I think I know the answer but I need HONEST opinions!
1st. I have a 3speed wiper motor, the wipers are very slow to come on, park or change speed, Ground problem, switch or motor?
2nd. The temp and fuel gauge are erratic as heck! Temp gauge sweeps all the time! Fuel gauge is "working" then buried below "E"! I fought this problem only to end up replacing the instrument board due to broken studs. I think the IVR is failing. The temp sender is new and the fuel sender seems to ohm out ok. Be honest and any advice will be a great help! :violent1:

What car are we talking about ?
What charging system components do you have ?
If along with the lazy wipers you also have headlights that change brightness, turn signals that flash at various rates, amp gauge that twitches hard with the signals, your power supply to these components is the issue.
The limiter powering the guages may be bad but...
first things first. Lets first get a good power supply in then see what we get out of it.
 
..SEE if you had pulled that thing and put the 318 in it you wouldnt have these problems!!! LOL I AM just kidding bro, i couldnt help it...do what 67Dart273 and Redfish are telling you to do, trust me, they know of what they speak....i just went through a mess of charging issues and they gave me great advice and great links...
 
If along with the lazy wipers you also have headlights that change brightness, turn signals that flash at various rates, amp gauge that twitches hard with the signals, your power supply to these components is the issue.
The limiter powering the guages may be bad but...
first things first.............................

Also a good point. Check your charging voltage at the battery and see what you get.
 
Hey Dart273, You have been alot of help! My wiper problem boiled down to myself! I replaced the wiper post seals and DID NOT get the retaining nut for the wiper transmission tight to the wiper motor shaft! My bad! So that got repaired today!
I am going to pull the instrument cluster and clean ALL the mounting points and grounds. I am also going to replace the IVR. I think alot of the troubles I am having is age and me trying to fix things with out a 2nd opinion!
Battery is at a full charge and the alternator with the engine running is charging to spec. I will have this dialed in by next weekend. BUT if any one has more ideas I am listening.
 
OK, post back with your progess and any more questions.
 
I do know that the fuel sending unit tests good and so does the fuel gauge. The thing that blows me away is the car had some dash lamps that where out. I removed the instrument cluster to replace the bulbs. Once out I disassembled the cluster and pulled the contacts out of the circuit board. SO I got a great used one. Put it all back together and the temp gauge and fuel gauge worked great for about a mile then both gauges went wacky! Of course I tested the fuel sender and replace the temp sender Didnt change a thing! I think its crazy luck that the IVR has a bad connection or just failed at the wrong time.
 
Could very well be. That's why I suggest you read what I posted and carefully go through the cluster. Once again, on mine, the limiter contacts are NOT very well intact with the board, and I jumpered from them to the board.
 
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