[crash]

82 Elky, After several blown fuses and a small electrical fire under the dash, caused by shorting the main hot wire to ground, the fuel guage remains on 3/4 tank. The fuse no longer blows and I have replaced all the melted wire under the dash.
From my Chilton manual I get the feeling I burned out the voltage resistor to the dash guages, since I only use the fuel guage, I have separate guage cluster in place of the idiot lights, I can only guess that the resistor is the problem.
Can I just get another fuel guage from the junk yard, or is there a separate resistor I must replace, if so, where is it, what does it look like?
Thanks, Bob

[docvette]

Doc here,

Remove your sender wire from the tank.

Depending on how wired, It will pin the gauge at full or empty (usually full) with no sender...Then ground the wire, It will have the opposite effect, If that is the case your gauge works.

Check or repair the sender at the tank. First try a ground jumper to the tank itself, This is usually the problem, If it operates properly, then add a ground strap from the frame to the tank inlet and filter screen access door on the top of the tank (where the sender and fuel lines go in tank)

Doc

[crash]

It stays on 3/4 tank no matter what I do, unplugged, grounded. Makes me think I burned out the dash guage.

[docvette]

Doc here,

Yup, Sounds that way to me too..unless that has an instrument regulator, look on the schematic for that.

Doc

[crash]

Doc, I found a blown fuse again, and replaceing it made the guage move, if this means its a true reading or not I don't know.
I tryed unpluging the sender and the guage pinned to past full, grounding the sender did nothing. when I plugged the sender back in , it returned to the reading before I started and the fuse is still good. I will have to drive it and see if the level goes down and then I guess that will mean everything is working properly.
Next I will have to find out whats blowing the fuse.





Thanks for your help, Bob