Fuel & Temp Gauge Repair

After troubleshooting I determined my gauges in my speedo were bad. I decided to remove it and this is what I saw-

Temp gauge is what I assume to be ‘fried.’ Intact otherwise.

Fuel gauge has broken off between clip and regulator. Also looks ‘fried.’

This week I purchased a NOS from bluemoonscooter and decided to open up the ‘new’ gauges to compare. Well I’m rough on things and-

I ended up knocking the wire from the clip to terminal A.

So now I have three non working gauges out of four. Ha! I’ve read countless articles on troubleshooting gauges, but can’t find any info on repairing these very fragile gauges! How they survive in a Jeep is beyond me!

Does anyone have a link of a how-to on repairing original gauges? I know I can send it to a repair shop, but would kinda like to try myself. Yet, I have no experience in electronics.

Cheers to the weekend!

 

Temperamental is saying it nicely! I just figure these are going to be 3 of many, so might as well learn. And it kills me to give up on ‘originals.’

 

word of caution . when you get it back together
Do Not apply 12V to cluster without a ground - or you'll get the magic smoke

 

Thank you, duly noted!

 

I opened my fuel up to see as well. The voltage regulator was working but the fuel gauge would not move at all on testing. I found like you the tiny/fine wire was loose from the ''A'' post. I finally did get it soldered back but had problems with the wire touching other areas of the gauge which would ground it making the gauge read full every time the ignition was turned on. Finally gave up on it.

 

This is good to know, thank you!

 

I too have had little success in soldering the nichrome wire. I think they were originally spot welded and backed up with epoxy.

I'm going to try some conductive silver epoxy when I have some time.


I use to use his stuff at work all the time.

That new temp gauge look repairable this way. Just be sure to leave a little wire exposed on the end were it broke off. and a way to hold it in place until the epoxy cures.

I am always surprised to see those 'cooked' gauges still operating properly.

 

'74 too. The reverse sweep gauges are even harder to find out there then +76 gauges. So if you want to keep original sweep faces, you have to keep at it on the rebuild. I sent my entire cluster to Bob's Speedo in MI. He restored everything to new. But I'm sure there are lots of shops that can take yours and fix them. Took awhile (A long while) but they returned it looking like new. And it all works. I put a 12v to 5v resistor 'box' in line of the 12v +power to feed the fuel / temp gauges only 5v. Hope this helps keep the gauge from frying in the future. The internal 5v resistor seems to be the weak link on these gauges especially 47yr old ones like ours. The resistor box I chose was real cheap and didn't work (dropped only to about 9v). So Found a better one. Just need to hook it up.