Almost Painless re-wire. A lil' help please

A pal installed a Painless kit in his O/T Nova. Everything works as it should except the fuel gauge. As soon as we turn the key on it pegs to full. I have taken the wire off the sender and it still pegs. Took the cluster out and pushed the needle back to empty but it still pegs as soon as I turn the key on. Looks like the red and white wire is the 12 + and the pink goes to the sender. Could the gauge have gotten fried along the way? Should the pink wire at the sender be flashing like a Ford does and peg the gauge when I ground it? Thanks in advance for any help guys. Tom.

 

Sounds like the sending wiring is grounded out somewhere.

 

Pink is the standard wire for the sending unit, since you have the gauge out, disconnect it at the gauge, then put the power to it and see if it pegs........usually a gauge pegs when the sending unit wire is grounded, perhaps you have pinched the wire somewhere?

 

Just to clear up, the pink is the proper wire for the gage (all gages) - the gas tank sending unit provides the ground path. Like davyj said the gage will peg when the sending unit wire is grounded. I think you can get to the sending unit wire at the tank and accessable near the rear end housing, it will unplug. You can give it a ground there or connect another sender and operate it. The actual wire is accessable by pulling the rear bench seat bottom & back.

 

Do you have the correct sender for the gauge? has either the gauge or the sender been replaced? if not check your sender wire as others have stated.

 

Was the gauge working before the re-wire?

 

Thanks for the replies. I disconnected the pink wire from the sender then at the dash pigtale I sent 12 volts through it to a test light at the sender connection. It lights up so I figure the pink wire isn't shorted any where. This sender is mounted in a plastic fuel cell but it seems to have a good ground from one of the sender mounting nuts to the frame. Maybe I should pop the pink wire out of the dash connection and try plugging it in. Just seems odd that the gauge would peg without the pink wire hooked up at the sender. Thanks again guys.

 

He said it DID work but not properly as it has a Harwood fuel cell in it. Maybe try hooking it back up and moving the tank float up and down with a stick? Thanks Tom.

 

Depending on how late the Nova is you might be thinking backwards

This as to how to do a basic test of the fuel gauge back at the sending unit on a Nova.

At the tank there is a sending unit wire going to the gauge. By disconnecting this wire from the sending unit and having it touch nothing and then turning on the ignition switch to the run position the gauge should read full or above the full mark. What you have done here is created an open circuit that has infinite resistance (a resistance higher than 30 ohms, 90 ohms, and higher than 10,000 ohms).
If you now get the gauge to read full or above full by now grounding this same sending unit wire thus creating a short or 0 ohms of resistance the gauge should now swing down to the empty or below mark.

If you get the gauge to do these two things as described then chances are from the sending unit wires terminal forward it is good.

If you cannot get the gauge to do these two things then either you did not have the sending unit wire grounded good in the test or the problem is from that point forward towards and through the gauge.

 

You may be right. I usually work on old fords and by grounding the sender wire it will peg. G.M. sounds like it is the other way. Since you guys have set me straight that open circuit means that the gauge reads full I will hook it back up in the a.m. and ground the wire or move the sender float up and down by hand. Thanks for all the help. A few minutes of everyones time will save me hours of guess work. Hope I can help one of you out some time.Tom.

 

Got it figured out ....I guess...Took everyones advice tried all your suggestions. Took the pink wire out of the connector on the back of the dash and touched it directly to the gauge and it started working. So I would guess that something is up with printed circuit. Hated to clip a brand new wire but he said to just stick an eyelet on it and he would throw it all back together. I wanted to use an eraser on the connections and try that but its his car. Thanks for the help. Tom. The HAMB is undefeated!!!

 

This is dead on right. Completely backwards from Ford or Mopar.

 

GM uses balancing coil approach, (two coils) while Furd and Mopar use bi-metal strip and coil approach.