I am trying to get my fuel gauge hooked up in my chevy truck. It was converted to 12 volts years ago and never had gauge. Now I've gotten the 7806 in place to drop the voltage and do have 6 volts coming toward the gauge. When its all together and I move the sending unit to half a tank the gauge won't move and I get a little shock from the sending unit. I figured I had a ground problem so I ran jumper wires to the ground on the gauge and sending unit and still the gauge doesn't move. It will move though if the hot wire is touching the post for the sending unit. Then it goes to full even though the sending unit is at half. So now I'm open to suggestions to what the culprit would be.
If you have power to the gauge and it is grounded correctly ( and wired correctly to the correct posts) try disconnecting the sending unit wire completely. Gauge should read max full. Then jumping the ground wire to the sending unit post on the gauge should make the gauge read empty. If this doesnt work then the gauge is NG ( assuming correct power, ground, and wiring) If the guage works then move to the sending unit, check it with a DVM and check the ohm readings at empty, full, and make sure it is linear throughout the range. Sending unit has to match the guage, different gauges use different sending units with different ohm ranges. You should know what range you are looking for before testing it. If the sender checks out ok then go through the wiring harness to find the problem.
Yes I can get the gauge to move when the lead to sending unit is removed. I have to check the ground wire though. The sending unit is a 30 ohm and I get a varied reading depending on where the float is. If it is a 30-200 ohm unit then half way should be around 85 and I can't remember if I got that or not. The gauge is stock from 1952. I will have to check everything g out again tonight. Thanks
Check out this month's newsletter on website for The Filling Station, a great supplier for Chev stuff. www.fillingstation.com They have covered testing and fixes for fuel gauge and sender issues. One of those "keeper" articles, as is their catalogue. Great people, Super cool store. Power goes to gauge, ground for gauge comes thru sender (with it's variable resistance) to sender pole on gauge.
Thanks for info. I will definetly look at that. But, I fixed mine. Started messing with it when I got home and had the wires backwards on the gauge. Gauge works great now. Thanks all for the help.
Thanks for following up with your results. So many times OPs leave people hanging, wondering if the problem is solved OR what actually worked. Good job.
The Jalopy Journal
