Gauge help !!! Please

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superdart426

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Guys my fuel and temp gauge were working fine..yesterday my friend was playing the radio and had the sw turned to the on position and now my gauges are pegged to the full side and the hot side...could it be the voltage limiter went bad,,,any help appreciated thanks bob
 
Start with the basics, in the accesories position are they pegged? When the engine is running check the voltage. It should be around 13-15 volts, a fully charged battery is 13.8. I would think you have fried the regulator for the gauges, you'll have to pull the dash to get at it. Just check the vehicle charging system first, thats the easiest to repair.
 
sounds like a toasted voltage limiter. I'm not sure what model car you have, but if you have a ralley dash, it's built into the fuel gauge. if it's a standard dash, the limiter just plugs in the back on the printed circut board.
 
Do not allow a failed limiter to send full system voltage through you gauges for any length of time. That limiter should fry itself before it fries the gauges but many tumes it does not.
The limiter feeds fuel gauge , water temp gauge and oil gauge if present.
Disconnect and insolate those sender wires untul you can find and fix the problem.
You dont absolutely have to crawl under the car to interupt the fuel sender. You can find that wire behind the left kick panel. Use a sewing needle or saimilar to back it out of the harness connector on the male side.
To repeat what others have said a factory service manual is your most needed tool.
 
I thought we controlled both gauges by regulating the negative side through a variable resistor or sending unit. What it looks like is the negative side of all the gauges somehow got tied directly to ground. If our ground is functioning through the resistor or sending unit it won't matter how much voltage we run to the gauge. We can prove this by taking the wire from our sending unit and grounding the wire. The gauge will peg. This should be true with oil pressure, temp and fuel level. So if the voltage limiter isn't the answer you have another tree to bark up.
 
Leadfoot said:
I thought we controlled both gauges by regulating the negative side through a variable resistor or sending unit. What it looks like is the negative side of all the gauges somehow got tied directly to ground.
Click to expand...

The chances of BOTH gauge senders becoming grounded is nearly zero

This is a simple series circuit

power from the key --- voltage limiter unit -- to BOTH gauges (Y)

power to fuel gauge, through gauge, to sender, to ground

power to temp gauge, through gauge, to sender to ground.

If something goes wrong with the voltage limiter, and it sends too much pwer to the gauges, they will peg. This is CLASSIC limiter failure. Ford and Mopar both used essentially the same system. It's happened to me at least three times over the years in different cars
 
put in a good limiter and seams the fuel is working fine and looks like the temp gauge is toast too,,,thanks for all the responses and help much appreciated.....BOB
 
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