The dreaded Voltage Stabiliser...

[Pete]

I was testing a car recently as it had the old "Fuel Gauge / Oil Pressure / Coolant Temp not working" unholy trinity.

My first guess was the 5v Voltage stabiliser. After-market gauges had been fitted for Oil and Coolant Temp.

I pulled the dashboard and Hey Presto! NO Voltage Stabiliser installed!

Luckily I had a spare, as you do..

I popped it in and: Fuel Gauge works (slowly).

However, the Coolant Temp gauge and the Oil Temp Gauge now travel up to Max.I assume this is because they are now open circuit.

I could live with this - due to the auxiliary gauges and having a Fuel gauge that works - however....

Will the two gauges that are now at full deflection burn out, or cause the Voltage Stabiliser to fail due to excessive current draw?

Any views?

[Dave999]

shouldn't

they are both designed to go full scale
i.e see the full 5 volts.. if the regulator is good it should be no more than 5 volts

however there is no accounting for 40 years worth of sympathetic use or unknown ABUSE

for coolant temp you could drill a hole in the thermostat housing and stick in a standard sender or wedge one in between the core and support on the radiator and use the unused gauge as intended

for oil temp a T piece and standard sender might do the trick or stick a standard one in a drilled and tapped sump plug for an alternative view
or get a dip stick based sender (check VW websites) of the same basic resistance. they work quite well saves drilling anything but you will have a wire to your dipstick.......

you can then marvel at how inaccurate the standard gauges are or indeed how different the temperature in the sump is from what has just been forced through the pump.

or indeed stick it in the trans cooler line, outlet from trans, again via a T piece adapter

ideally you don't want to be using the same sender for 2 gauges as they may work in different ways

however the more gauges you have the more time you spend alarmed and worried

[Dave999]

PS fuel gauge working slowly is no bad thing

at a guess there will be an induction coil somewhere in the feed that basically slows the changes in voltage so the needle in the gauge doesn't flap about with fuel sloshing about.

aussie cars don't have this. so if i stand on the brakes i can go from 1/4 full to totally full and back to empty repeatedly for few seconds while the rust in the tank does some surfing....

not great, cheapens the mopar experience some what....you wouldn't get that kind of thing in a car with a walnut dash....



Dave

[Pete]

Many thanks for the response, Dave.

I can find partial diagrams but not the whole nine yards.

Cheers!

[Dave999]

a range of service manual here

http://www.mymopar.com/index.php?pid=109

[Pete]

Many thanks, Dave!