Inliners International Forums General Discussion Electrical Gas guage problrms

Hi,

I'm looking for some help with my gas gauge. What I have is a 12 volt gague in my 54 pick up. The truck was converted to 12 volts from day one that I started driving this truck. I even tried putting the original 6 volt gague in with a resister with no response. The problem is that not getting any reading out of it. it use to work, I have a new sending unit at least a couple years old. I have the hot line from the ignition switch and wire to the sending unit. What I get is the needle goes all the way to full and the gague gets warm. I tried to hook the line from the ignition switch to a hot wire to the junction box and there is no reading needle stays on E. I put a ground wire from the bell housing to the frame of the truck no change. I have pulled the sending unit and at least it is intact and looks good. Any help or suggestion for things to look at. I don't like not having a working gague.

Thanks in advance for any help Steve

Steve, What make is your '53? Is the sending unit stock, or did it come with the 12v gauge?

Tim

Hi Tim,

Thanks for your questions. This is in my 54 GMC pickup the sending unit was purchased for Chevy Duty I believe. The gague is out of a 55-59 GMC pickup.

Thanks Steve

I believe the reason Titen was asking that is to find out if the sender and gauqe are compatible. The float (sending unit) has a rheostat that varies the resistance as it goes up and down, if the ohm's aren't syncronized with the gauge it won't work or won't work properly. With some the guage show full with the highest reading and others it will show empty with the highest reading and if the current is wrong you will probably get nothing. So it's usually best to get a compatible sender with a new gauge whenever possible.

Thanks Jalopy45,

The gauge I have in the truck is one for a 54-59 chevy/GMC that is how they are listed. I figured it is the correct one because I am using the original gauge from a 55-59 GMC. I will continue to check the wireing and the fuse to make sure it is correct. I guess last resort I will order another sending unit. I don't think that is the problem but like most things I will take it one thing at a time, and hopefully figure it out.

Steve

You could try removing the sending unit from the tank, and put longer jumpers from the gauge wiring to the sending unit, and from the sending unit to ground, so you could manually raise and lower the float to see if there is any change in the gauge pointer (if you do this be sure to plug the sending unit hole in the tank to prevent fuel vapor dangers).

Many fuel gauge problems come from a bad ground to the sending unit, if it doesn't have a jumper wire it has to ground from the unit to the tank to body to frame. Also, check to see if there is a possibility the V+ and sending unit wires got crossed on the gauge.

Good luck,

Tim

Shouldn't your hot wire go from the ignition to the gauge then from the send terminal on the gauge to the sending unit and if the tank has a questionable ground run a wire from the sending unit to a ground. I have never seen a chevy with the hot wire going straight to the sending unit. Chrysler wired thier gauges different and they didn't use a float on their sending units

I found a site that may be of help,

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[url=http://www.6066gmcguy.org/Electrical-02.htm]

Thanks for all the information,

I think the information that you have given me along with the web site I think I will be able to figure what the problem is and be able to fix it. I will post what I figure out.

Thanks again Steve