Function testing factory Gauges.

[HotRodPC]

Man what a pain in the balls, I hope I don't have to go through that **** with mine.

Yeah, well, I just might be kicking myself in the balls. I've got the coolant out of the motor AGAIN, testing the sender all by itself, with ohms, and with a quage hooked to a sender in a pan of boiling water, and a DC power supply by the stove. This is after I tested it stand alone in my truck, like I tested gauges stand alone on the 84C20 that I KNOW works. So now that I KNOW I have to good working gauges other then the 1 that is now in the trucks cluster., I tested the same GOOD Gauge on my sender in the truck and it DID NOT work. This is why I brought the sender in the house to test it with boiling water and a known GOOD gauge. It DID NOT WORK, Until, are you ready for this, and I fuggin called this long ago too, and Retro cofirmed it, so I"m in the kitchen testing and still NO working right, UNTIL, I clamped a ground wire to the sender and hit the wire to the DC Negative, and wallllahh !!!! The gauge jumed to about 220 degrees, which water boils at 212, and I had it good and rolling boil, so 220 is probably right. Now I KNOW my sender is good, I KNOW my Gauge is good. Anyone wanna bet me, that I put all this same **** back in the truck, warm up the motor to a NON working Gauge, then I GROUND THE FUGGIN SENDER it'll work??? Oh, and the original sender that I took out of the truck matched perfect to what this new Wells Senosr Did. The BWD sensor seemed to run about 240, like it might read hotter than the others and not be accurate.

 

[HotRodPC]

OH well, wishful thinking. That's obviously one problem too on the grounding, but it still didn't work. Gotta be the printable circuit to the cluster.

 

[89Suburban]

Hmm. I better pull my sensors and clean that sealer **** off them. Don;t some come packaged with that **** on them though? Like I think it is the red stuff I remember seeing on the threads, red sealer.

 

[sonicbluezx3]

I just bought a new gauge cluster at LKQ a couple weeks ago since I broke the part that the little gear indicator string hangs on. It came with printed circuit and new gauges and all, so I'm going to plug it up and see if it'll work. I will definitely check the printed circuit first though. My problems didn't start until I switched to a new cluster that I pulled from LKQ a couple years ago (at the time I didn't realize that the guages could just be individually swapped out. I wanted to change the fuel gauge from saying unleaded to diesel.)

So of course I feel silly that now I have all of these problems all because I wanted to change a damn fuel gauge for what it said! Oh well. If this cluster doesn't work, I'm going to go buy the sunpro gauges and make a bracket so they will fit in the existing cluster. Fabricated a lot of other things on the dash so why not? Haha.

 

[sonicbluezx3]

Hmm. I better pull my sensors and clean that sealer **** off them. Don;t some come packaged with that **** on them though? Like I think it is the red stuff I remember seeing on the threads, red sealer.

I bought two of them.... one came with the teflon already on it, and the second one didn't have any. I didn't put any on the second one.

 

[89Suburban]

I bought two of them.... one came with the teflon already on it, and the second one didn't have any. I didn't put any on the second one.

Yah, I knew I saw that before. So what the hell ya supposed to do, wire wheel that **** off a brand new sender unit? Don't make sense to me. But if it interferes with the grounding like some here are leaning towards then so be it then I guess. I would suppose the soft brass of the threads is enough to create a seal huh?

 

[HotRodPC]

I didn't put teflon tape on mine this time when I put it back in and no leaks. Speaking of which I gotta get to my Tools thread and post up another tool that I bought at HF long ago and finally used it this week. It worked friggin great.

 

[chengny]

I just bought a new gauge cluster at LKQ

Damn you young fellers - with all your hip phrases and abbreviations - you kill me.

Please, for us oldtimers who don't get around that much any more - what is LKQ?

 

[HotRodPC]

Sup Jerry. Maybe you'll read my hell and back over a fuggin Temp Gauge. I know the Gauge is good, I know the sender is good. I know the gauge goes Pegged HOT when I ground the sender wire and I can't get the biotch to work to save my life. I think I'm down to being a bad printed circuit.

 

[sonicbluezx3]

I just bought a new gauge cluster at LKQ

Damn you young fellers - with all your hip phrases and abbreviations - you kill me.

Please, for us oldtimers who don't get around that much any more - what is LKQ?

LKQ is just the name of a you pull it yard. Also known as Keystone Automotive.

 

[sonicbluezx3]

Sup Jerry. Maybe you'll read my hell and back over a fuggin Temp Gauge. I know the Gauge is good, I know the sender is good. I know the gauge goes Pegged HOT when I ground the sender wire and I can't get the biotch to work to save my life. I think I'm down to being a bad printed circuit.

Sounds like it to me. I will hopefully be swapping clusters this weekend and testing that whole printed circuit thing. We'll see. I had the whole "new" one apart and cleaned everything (printed circuit with alcohol... not soap and water). If it doesn't fix the problem I'm going to buy mechanical gauges. Don't really want to do that though.

 

[HotRodPC]

Well it's pissed me off. I'm one of those don't give up on ****, and I've let this stupid issue absorb to much of my valuable time and head space. I'm going to start charging rent for this problem living in my head for as long as it has. I'm about ready to evict it and give up.

 

[89Suburban]

Well it's pissed me off. I'm one of those don't give up on ****, and I've let this stupid issue absorb to much of my valuable time and head space. I'm going to start charging rent for this problem living in my head for as long as it has. I'm about ready to evict it and give up.

Can you pull a cluster from one of the other trucks you got just to test?

 

[HotRodPC]

Can you pull a cluster from one of the other trucks you got just to test?

I could if I wanted to tear another truck apart. Every damn thing works in the 84C20 down to the Cruise Control.

 

[chengny]

I was wondering about the origins of this saga.

Did you get the truck with the temp gauge in this condition or have you had it long enough that at some point it worked and then stopped indicating?

If you had it while it went from functioning to non-functioning;

Did it fail all at once?

Did it sporadically act up - usually giving an accurate reading but sometimes pegging low - until it just one day quit?

Or, did it slowly but steadily begin to read cooler and cooler - finally ending up where you are now - only reading pegged high (when the sender wire is grounded) or no upwards deflection (i.e.< 100 F).