Fuel gauge wiring question

moparmat2000 said
Oh I hear you. I have made a grounding strap for the die cast cluster housings on my junk that bolt to the steering column mounting bolts. Otherwise the only grounds the cluster gets are from its mounting screws. Time and age that becomes a problem.

Yeah a crowd of owners/ DIY type do use steering column mounting for a ground point. I had done the same in the beginning. Later it occurred to me that if at some point in the future I might need to partially pull the inst' panel for light bulb R&R or any other simple service I would need to lower the column. Right away I would loose my added ground. Thus the pre reinstall testing is lost.
I want to go back to another members earlier post for a bit. He more or less quoted what I had posted in similar threads concerning the rally panel. I want to elaborate on the 12 volt side of the 3 thermal gauges. Ma mopar used a blue wire with white tracer. In my 67-model fish. That wire begins at the ignition switch. Two of the same color wire are in one terminal of harness switch connector. The other of the two goes through the firewall to the system voltage regulator and everything else under the hood that requires 12 volts. Neither is fused (other than the fusible link outside the firewall). So yes there are two regulators getting 12 volts from the same color wire. No fault in that but... If the instrument voltage regulator is not going to be inside the fuel gauge, there is no need to put 12 volts in this gauge. Those 2 post gauges (oil and temp) don't get 12 volts fed to the inside of them. That's why I back this blue w/ white out of the round inst' panel connector and routed it directly to the added solid state regulator no matter where I choose to mount the thing. So now one must ask is there a benefit in this extra mod' effort. If you do enough research, you'll surely find loose or broken pins on the circuit boards. With further research you'll find pictures of printed circuit boards Showing the copper trace from this pin to fuel blistered completely away from the board and burned open. Yep, there was a short circuit somewhere and that tiny copper film served as a fusible link. This happened more often on the earlier panels that house only 2 of the thermal gauges (no oil gauge) but it could happen to any. An inline fuse holder is cheap enough. It's simple enough to place these fuse holders behind the column door so that is the first place my blue w/white goes. Then onward to my IVR and volts gauge.
Although I've never had a problem, if all of 4 of my gauges failed at once I would need to remove 4 screws and drop the column door to check a fuse. Inline fuses for my aftermarket stereo are located there too so they are labeled which is what. I've went so far as to modify factory wiring diagrams, document all the changes and place this info in the glovebox for the next owner.
So my train of thought is/was to recognize all the problems others have had and hopefully avoid them in my own car. I don't expect everyone else to ride the same train. Do as you see adequate (please yourself). Afterall, fuses don't blow for no reason. If I do find a blown fuse I have to dig in and discover why.