Gas Gauge

[JacobMichael]

What are the most common causes of a broken gas gauge.

Jake

[River Beast]

broken or non-working?

I had found the connector on the back side of the gage cluster to have all loose connections and carefully re-soldered them to the board... no intermitten gages since 97.

Bad grounding could be a factor or a bad sending unit.

Clean all your connections well and make sure it's still connected to teh tank sending unit

[ July 31, 2002, 03:51 PM: Message edited by: River Beast ]

[FlakeyJake]

Mine's been inaccurate since I've had it. When I fill it up, it only goes to 3/4, and when it's empty, the little idiot light comes on once for a split second....if I happen to not be looking at that moment....I'm doomed.

Is this the sending unit? or what? I haven't ventured into that area yet.

[tito]

Mine does the same thing as FlakeyJake's, but I dont have the benefit of a warning light, at least one that I've ever seen. Interested in knowing how to fix this problem also.

[PAJEEPER]

The wires to the sender are a big cause of problems. Make sure the sender has a good ground wire from it. Here in the rust belt I've seen the wires corrode inside the insulation. You'll know it when you see the copper turned a black color. If thats the case you need to cut it back to clean copper and solder on a new piece. Make sure the connections are well taped.

[Tourettes]

Warning light for the gas gage, whats that?
That would have come in very handy on Monday when I ran outta gas in the middle of McDonalds drive thru(at the speaker).Does my '83 wag even have one? or a 4x4 light too?Im gonna have to get in there this weekend with some new bulbs!
Also, i gotta fix the glass for it too does the whole assembley come apart easily?

[gsmikie]

my stupid gas gauge wont work unless i put gas in the tank.....................

[JINGA]

If the gauge in your dash has an "offset" it might be an easy fix.

I had a 71 Pontiac Firebird some time ago. When I took the dash apart I learned I could gently nudge the needle on the gas gauge around kinda like restting the time on a clock.

This was my handy "recalibrate" method. After filling up, I pushed the little needle over to the "full" mark. Seemed to work okay for me. I'm not sure if Pontiac meant for things to work like that, or if AMC did that too, but you might try it.

[joe]

Usually an inop or inaccurate gauge is due to a bad connection(ground) at the sending unit or the sending unit itself. The actual gauge rarely goes south but check the connections at the gauge too. If "both" the fuel and temp gauges are inop, it's prolly the CVR(voltage regulator) in the temp gauge that's shot.
If your temp gauge is working then the CVR is ok and I'd start with the connections at the tank and gauge. You can check the sending unit(removed from tank) with a VOM at E-1/2-F to determine if it's good.