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Craig's 71

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I need help with this I put a full painless wiring harness in my 1971 Plymouth Duster when I did that I also put in a raylle dash everything works fine except the fuel gauge it either reads full or empty at all times I thought I would change the voltage limiter but the one on the raylle dash isn't the push in kind it's a long sphere looking one with a wire coming from it to the fuel gauge any thoughts
 
Check the sender and the wire to the gauge before throwing parts at it easy to do.
 
Just do a search there are a lot of threads on here how to do it, really simple.
 
What you pointed out is a noise cap' . They all have that. Your limiter is inside the 3 post fuel gauge.
All 3 thermal gauges operate on the same limiter no matter where it is located. Reads like your original limiter is working since you didn't mention issues in the oil or temp' gauges.
 
I ran into a similar problem on a G.M. car once and it turned out that the sender unit was not matched to the gas gage. There were two different ratings on senders that year.
 
RedFish said:
What you pointed out is a noise cap' . They all have that. Your limiter is inside the 3 post fuel gauge.
All 3 thermal gauges operate on the same limiter no matter where it is located. Reads like your original limiter is working since you didn't mention issues in the oil or temp' gauges.
Click to expand...

THIS!!

There are bullions and bullions of posts on gauges on this site

Carl_Sagan_BillionsAndBillions.jpg


If you are sure that the other gauges operate correctly......AND......reasonably accurately, it might be problems at the cluster connector (loose pins) a bad trace on the board, bad connection at the gauge studs, a bad gauge, problems in the wiring path / terminals to the sender, OR THE SENDER ITSELF which far and away is the most likely suspect

you can use resistors to check gauge accuracy, by substituting resistor for the sender

c-3826-jpg.jpg


Hey Del, Look what I found!!! An original Miller Gauge tester!!!

Homemade gauge test tool, C-3826
 
67Dart273 said:
THIS!!

There are bullions and bullions of posts on gauges on this site

View attachment 1715098940

If you are sure that the other gauges operate correctly......AND......reasonably accurately, it might be problems at the cluster connector (loose pins) a bad trace on the board, bad connection at the gauge studs, a bad gauge, problems in the wiring path / terminals to the sender, OR THE SENDER ITSELF which far and away is the most likely suspect

you can use resistors to check gauge accuracy, by substituting resistor for the sender

View attachment 1715098941

Hey Del, Look what I found!!! An original Miller Gauge tester!!!

Homemade gauge test tool, C-3826
Click to expand...
I
 
Craig's 71 said:
So o too
Click to expand...
So I took out the painless wiring harness and put the factory one back in now everything works except for the gas gauge it works one time outta twenty tries and when it's not working it still reads either full or empty at all times
 
OK, look, I thought maybe my post above might inspire some research

Negating the internal IVR, and just describing the "functional path" Here is how all gauges work except the ammeter

Power comes from ignition switch..........to the limiter/ regulator......and feeds to one post of the gauge, through the gauge...........to the sender wire.......back to the tank.......to the sender.........through the sender to ground

There are several pitfalls there for trouble, "in general."

Bad IVR, bad gauge, bad connections at the gauge studs, problems with the cluster PC board traces and connections to the harness connector pins at the PC board

Bad connection in the sender wire. There are terminations at the PC board connector........through the left kick panel connector, the terminal right at the tank

The sender itself can obviously be bad/ intermittent

So how do you test it?

Refer to my post above, the photo of the factory test "rig." NOTICE THE RESISTANCE values. You disconnect the sender, and substitute resistors of know value (or that you can measure with a multimeter) and those resistor values should give the readings at the gauge as noted

It DOES NOT MATTER if it's fuel, oil or temp gauge. They all work the same
 
Read the post in the electrical forum w/ the same basic question from a guy w/ a 69 Rallye dash. Answered many times. The sites which sell electronic dash regulators (ex. RTE) have instructions w/ photos. But sounds like you aren't interested in trouble-shooting, just trying high-level swaps w/ no diagnostics. Might get there that way, but unlikely.
 
Again... If the oil and temp gauges operate as they should, the mechanical limiter is not the problem.
My guesses as to where the problem is... The wire to fuel sender is dark blue and placed at 12 o'clock position of the round harness connector. I've seen the wires placed in wrong ports of that connector causing strange conditions. Some of the factory wiring diagrams are drawn confusing. The connectors key is physically at 12 o'clock position yet is drawn rotated 90 degrees. Some of the aftermarket/homemade drawings are wrong also.
I've seen the contact posts shoved through the circuit board. I've seen gobs of solder on the back of the boards too. If the sender wire intermittently makes contact to ground, the gauge goes to max 'F'.
So the sender signal on that blue wire is my first guess. Fault somewhere between the inst' panel and the senders contact post.
I've also seen gauges that stick intermittently at the off/home position. The winding on bi-metal beam coated in nastiness can effect movement like a cast on a arm. Needle itself distorted ( poor/improper handling ), etc...
DO NOT TAP ON THE LENS! Good luck with it.
 
RedFish said:
Again... If the oil and temp gauges operate as they should, the mechanical limiter is not the problem.
My guesses as to where the problem is... The wire to fuel sender is dark blue and placed at 12 o'clock position of the round harness connector. I've seen the wires placed in wrong ports of that connector causing strange conditions. Some of the factory wiring diagrams are drawn confusing. The connectors key is physically at 12 o'clock position yet is drawn rotated 90 degrees. Some of the aftermarket/homemade drawings are wrong also.
I've seen the contact posts shoved through the circuit board. I've seen gobs of solder on the back of the boards too. If the sender wire intermittently makes contact to ground, the gauge goes to max 'F'.
So the sender signal on that blue wire is my first guess. Fault somewhere between the inst' panel and the senders contact post.
I've also seen gauges that stick intermittently at the off/home position. The winding on bi-metal beam coated in nastiness can effect movement like a cast on a arm. Needle itself distorted ( poor/improper handling ), etc...
DO NOT TAP ON THE LENS! Good luck with it.
Click to expand...
Thank
RedFish said:
Again... If the oil and temp gauges operate as they should, the mechanical limiter is not the problem.
My guesses as to where the problem is... The wire to fuel sender is dark blue and placed at 12 o'clock position of the round harness connector. I've seen the wires placed in wrong ports of that connector causing strange conditions. Some of the factory wiring diagrams are drawn confusing. The connectors key is physically at 12 o'clock position yet is drawn rotated 90 degrees. Some of the aftermarket/homemade drawings are wrong also.
I've seen the contact posts shoved through the circuit board. I've seen gobs of solder on the back of the boards too. If the sender wire intermittently makes contact to ground, the gauge goes to max 'F'.
So the sender signal on that blue wire is my first guess. Fault somewhere between the inst' panel and the senders contact post.
I've also seen gauges that stick intermittently at the off/home position. The winding on bi-metal beam coated in nastiness can effect movement like a cast on a arm. Needle itself distorted ( poor/improper handling ), etc...
DO NOT TAP ON THE LENS! Good luck with it.
Click to expand...
Thank you
 
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