Fuel gauge wiring question

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70SwingerGuy

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When I purchased my 70 Swinger, it had an aftermarket fuel gauge under the dash, due to what I soon discovered was a missing needle on the factory fuel gauge. I managed to find another correct fuel gauge to put back in, but I dont know how to rewire it. I havent taken the cluster out yet, so I thought I would ask in advance if anyone knows what I do with the wire coming from the tank. Wiring is not my specialty...haha
Thanks for any help!
 
Try Mymopar.com and download a service manual. You'll find a wiring diagram there and you can follow the path from the sender to the gauge. If it's like my 73 Sport 340, there's a connector behind the driver's foot panel where you can find the wire color specified in the manual. Locate that wire and you can follow it to the gauge.
 
If you are replacing the OEM rally fuel gauge, you may want to consider doing the solid state IVR upgrade.

The OEM uses an archaic mechanical voltage limiter integrated in the fuel gauge to supply the 5-6 ish volts needed to run the other gauges (Not amp gauge). By defeating the switching effect in the gas gauge, and using a solid state voltage limiter in it's place, you reduce the chance of a closed failure supplying full voltage to your gauges and frying them.

***EDIT*** Disregard the red and black jumpers......They power the ammeter to voltmeter conversion.

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Basic wiring will be one wire (blue iirc at least for 67) that comes from the fuel sender in the rear light harness to the kick panel,then to the dash harness.

The dash harness has a connector round in the case of ralley dash that will have that same wire.

Once into the cluster the circuit boards take it to the correct pin on the gauge.

As corny as this is it is very well done from an understanding sense

 
The path for the OEM wire was from tank, up through trunk floor and into rear harness, up to left front kick panel where that connector mated the rear harness and inst. panel harness. From there the wire went up to the cluster PC board connector and to one stud of the gauge. Through the gauge, to the IVR, which feeds both temp and fuel, and oil if it's a Ralleye cluster, then from the IVR to switched 12V from the key. As someone mentioned, go to MyMopar.com, get your self a factory service manual. You may have to settle for Dodge vs Plymouth, etc. Also while there go to the wiring section and download the 3rd party diagram, which leaves out some details, connectors, etc, but can be easier to follow.
 
Basic wiring will be one wire (blue iirc at least for 67) that comes from the fuel sender in the rear light harness to the kick panel,then to the dash harness.

The dash harness has a connector round in the case of ralley dash that will have that same wire.

Once into the cluster the circuit boards take it to the correct pin on the gauge.

As corny as this is it is very well done from an understanding sense



I was wondering if anyone was going to mention the connector and it’s corresponding wire. :)
 
If you are replacing the OEM rally fuel gauge, you may want to consider doing the solid state IVR upgrade.

The OEM uses an archaic mechanical voltage limiter integrated in the fuel gauge to supply the 5-6 ish volts needed to run the other gauges (Not amp gauge). By defeating the switching effect in the gas gauge, and using a solid state voltage limiter in it's place, you reduce the chance of a closed failure supplying full voltage to your gauges and frying them.

***EDIT*** Disregard the red and black jumpers......They power the ammeter to voltmeter conversion.

View attachment 1716185255
Is there a thread that shows how to do the upgrade?
 
I may have covered it in my stalled out build thread titled
67/68/69 Cuda dilemma

It may be also be in my very very stalled out build thread titled
1967 Plymouth Barracuda notchback

More than likely the whole process is detailed somewhere in the 1967 barracuda notchback , including how to make a solid state IVR to attach to the back of the cluster.

Hope this helps
Matt
 
awesome! thanks guys, this site is great, friendly and knowledgeable people willing to help out, thats what this culture is all about
 
awesome! thanks guys, this site is great, friendly and knowledgeable people willing to help out, thats what this culture is all about
I just checked. That 67 barracuda build was truncated down a bit. No pix. If I have time today I will scare em up, and tell you how I did this. Pretty easy actually. You might as well mod your amp gage to volts while you are there.
 
Looks like I may have gotten lucky. After removing the aftermarket fuel gauge, I discovered that the previous owner tapped into what looks like the original sending unit wire, its dark blue and has a round push connector, so if thats the case, Ill just have to find where it plugs back into the cluster in the dash and all should hopefully be well
 
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If you have the dash and gauges out, I HIGHLY suggest what Matt and CFD244 mentioned...upgrade to a voltage limiter that is located OUTSIDE of the fool gauge. Remember these gauges are over 50 years old, as well as the wiring.
I did the upgrade on our 67 and the oem fuel gauge continues to be operational.
Removing instruments clusters isn't fun, unless you know a sexy skirt wearing midget that let's you watch...
Looks like I may have gotten lucky. After removing the aftermarket fuel gauge, I discovered that the previous owner tapped into what looks like the original sending unit wire, its dark blue and has a round push connector, so if thats the case, Ill just have to find where it plugs back into the cluster in the dash and all should hopefully be well
 
4spdragtop: I think that is great advice, Im going to be doing some reading of the required threads and find out how to do it.
Removing instruments clusters isn't fun, unless you know a sexy skirt wearing midget that let's you watch...
I just might, Ill get back to you on that one ;)
 
I was leery opening the fuel gauge and doing the mod. No need to be. It was easy. Just plan on where you mount the ivr.
IVr has just been ordered.
Question, the RTE instructions state to mount it to one of the circuit boards grounding points, but up in post #5 by CFD244, it looks like it is just attached to the plastic body of the panel, would this make any kind of a difference?
 
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Any questions, just ask. I bypassed the ammeter wiring by using a small bolt, and nut and heavy duty shrink wrap, and attaching both ammeter leads together, and using shrink tubing to cover them up.

Then using the ammeter face, and needle, I used the guts from a Sun 2" volt gage and converted it to volts. I think the gage PN# is 5680 or something like that. I clipped the volt gage plastic needle short, and super glued the old ammeter pointer on the volt gage stub. You have to carefully rework the gage face to fit the sun gage. And grind a spot of clearance in the cluster for the pendulum under the volt gage to be able to swing. I also wired in a 12V LED for low voltage since I will run a denso alternator and it has this feature.

The schematic for the IVR is off the shelf electronic parts. I wired mine with red as 12V in, yellow as 5.5V out, and black as ground. These I tapped right off the studs on the fuel gage. Note the thicker red and black wires. These are feed wires to the volt gage.

With the ammeter to volt gage conversion, I have since removed the black volt gage ground jumper wire.

How I made this gage work is I used a rubber grommet, and plastic insulators/spacers on the red + side, and oversized the + side hole its stud comes out of from the cluster housing so the red positive side doesnt short and ground out. On the negative side, I removed the white paint inside the cluster where its stud comes through, and used a metal spacer so the volt gage negative side stud grounds to the cluster housing.

Fuel gage, mark a lay line on the back to line the gage face back up when done. I used a small pair of wire cutters to carefully uncrimp and remove the fuel gage face, then when inside, you can see what looks like points. This is the IVR. You want to remove it and not disturb the side of the gage that makes the pointer work. Leave all 3 mounting studs intact. You will jump off 2 of them with your homemade IVR , plus 1 is the signal from the gas tank. When done, you can carefully recrimp the gage face back on using the same wire cutter plyers.

I used dimmable 5630 led light strip and lined the bucket. I soldered these to a bulb socket. Remember to bench test this. LEDs are polarity sensitive. If they dont light, turn the socket 180° and reinstall it.

Hope this helps you get the devil out of the rallye dash.

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You can also just clip and remove the black wire, and clip the metal spring with the contactor point and remove it, then leave the rest. You want the gage pointer to remain functional.

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IVr has just been ordered.
Question, the RTE instructions state to mount it to one of the circuit boards grounding points, but up in post #5 by CFD244, it looks like it is just attached to the plastic body of the panel, would this make any kind of a difference?
My IVR is mounted to the metal gauge housing, which is where the circuit board gets grounded. The hole was there, and it was convenient. :)
 
My IVR is mounted to the metal gauge housing, which is where the circuit board gets grounded. The hole was there, and it was convenient. :)
Thanks for the clarification, I thought that maybe i was missing something in the picture, and I was right :)
 
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