fuel and temp gauge dont work

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mopar56

mopar56

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well we finally got my sons Duster back on the road after working on it all winter and after it being off the road for who knows how many years, as usual there are bugs to work out but right now most importantly the gauges don't work, the fuel gauge and temp gauge both sit at the bottom and never move, we grounded out both senders and neither one moves, the fuel sender looked perfect when we had the tank out and it has been replaced before in its life, the wire harness for the temp sender is still wrapped and looks ok, I didn't try grounding the oil sender yet to see if the oil light comes on but I will and suspect it wont, we had the dash cluster out to change some bulbs and bypass the ammeter in the winter and although I wasn't looking for problems the printed circuit looked good visually, I seem to remember a voltage limiter on the back of the cluster that were troublesome could this be our problem? we are probably just going to install some aftermarket gauges for reliability but it would be nice to have the ones on the dash work to, thanks.
 
Is the voltage limiter on the back of the cluster??? That is classic symptoms of a bad or missing voltage limiter....
 
Yep sounds like the the voltage limiter
 
You can make an electronic one for a few bucks, and there are plenty of "How to's" about it around here.
 
Ok, thanks, guys that sounds pretty conclusive and what I was thinking to, I looked up under the dash last night, its there but who knows if it works, I have a spare from another dash but looks like the cluster has to come out to change it because I certainly cant get my hand up there so we will have to pull the cluster out when we have the time so for now we have a aftermarket trio of gauges we use that my son had he was going to hook up anyway, there is a oil pressure, amp, and fuel gauge, we wired those up last night those should get him by for now I hope, we are delete a temp gauge so gotta get this done soon, but with a brand new water pump, hoses, and rad, hopefully no problems there.
 
Make your own like this schematic, put spade ends on it and plug it in. On rallye dashes you have to disable the one inside the fuel gate, and using ring terminals piggyback it on the back of the gage panel. I built one for my 67 cuda rallye dash. I have the pieces to build one for my sons 69 notch. The NTE960 semiconductor is about a buck, and will take up to 35V and drop it to 5.5V. So feeding 12.5V - 13V through it to convert to 5 5V output it should last damn near forever. I color coded mine black for ground. Red for the 12V input, and yellow for 5.5V gage output.

Screenshot_2016-12-28-22-20-08.png


downloadfile-18.jpg
 
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Also, the studs on the back of the dash, the ones that go to the two gauges, get a thin corrosion film on them. Clean the studs, and change the stamped nuts to a standard nut. It gives more contact area. Also add an extra ground.
 
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Also clean and solder the pins on the circuit boards to the copper tracings. I removed my circuit boards and cleaned all the contacts w TarnX to remove the tarnish.
 
moparmat2000 said:
Also clean and solder the pins on the circuit boards to the copper tracings. I removed my circuit boards and cleaned all the contacts w TarnX to remove the tarnish.
Click to expand...

Why doesn't this antiquated outmoded obsolete software able to do a simple damn multi quote? Had to go back and copy and paste this............

furyus2 said:
Also, the studs on the back of the dash, the ones that go to the two gauges, get a thin corrosion film on them. Clean the studs, and change the stamped nuts to a standard nut. It gives more contact area. Also add an ectra ground.
Click to expand...

I've said this many times

1....Add a ground
2....Check / clean/ nuts on the gauge studs
3....Check/ repair connector pins

AND LAST....
4....On my car the spring connectors where the IVR plugs into were not reliably contacting the board traces. If you get an electronic plug-in replacement, you will have to solder bridges across them

cluster.jpg
 
67Dart273 said:
Why doesn't this antiquated outmoded obsolete software able to do a simple damn multi quote? Had to go back and copy and paste this............



I've said this many times

1....Add a ground
2....Check / clean/ nuts on the gauge studs
3....Check/ repair connector pins

AND LAST....
4....On my car the spring connectors where the IVR plugs into were not reliably contacting the board traces. If you get an electronic plug-in replacement, you will have to solder bridges across them

View attachment 1715053151
Click to expand...
THANK YOU!
 
67Dart273 said:
Why doesn't this antiquated outmoded obsolete software able to do a simple damn multi quote? Had to go back and copy and paste this............



I've said this many times

1....Add a ground
2....Check / clean/ nuts on the gauge studs
3....Check/ repair connector pins

AND LAST....
4....On my car the spring connectors where the IVR plugs into were not reliably contacting the board traces. If you get an electronic plug-in replacement, you will have to solder bridges across them

View attachment 1715053151
Click to expand...
I think if i had the standard dash i would follow the tracings to where the nuts and ground screw are and wire up a solid state IVR with ring terminals like i did with my rallye dash, and not use the plug in retainers
 
An adjustable "voltage limiter" is only $30 on ebay. The adjustment lets you tweak the output voltage so at least one gage reads perfect. There are also mechanical screwdriver adjusters on each gage's needle-holder, but tricky to set. As mentioned, a missing cluster ground could also prevent both gages from working (and the bulbs).
 
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