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Well, they're not exactly jittering, but that's the best word I can think of...
When I turn on the fan, headlights, or even put the blinker on, the oil pressure, temp, and fuel gauge needles all move!
It's on the HQ ute. It's a Belmont, so it came with the fuel gauge and oil/temp lights. I've just put in a Premier (?) combination fuel/temp/oil gauge set, that I had checked out and calibrated at an instrumentation shop. Checked out fine.
Took it for the first drive after wiring it all up, and noticed the needles move when I suck power for other things! Temp moves from 1/2 to almost 3/4. Fuel moves from 1/4 to almost 1/2. Oil moves also. Turn the extra thing off, and it goes straight back.
Obviously it's because the 12 volts the gauge sees drops when I turn something else on. The resistance in the senders stay constant, and the current the gauges see changes. But I'm not sure why. Any ideas?
Battery leads are brand new, thick ones made up by an auto-electrician. Battery is fairly old, but seems to be holding up ok. Alternator looks quite new. Perhaps a dodgy earth?
*Surely* it's not normal... :-)
Jason.
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It could be a couple of things. Firstly you could just have a bad earth connection either to your body from your battery or from your body to your dash.
It could also be a faulty dash regulator (if HQ's have a dash regulator that is). |
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Thanks Jim.
I'll double check the new Earth lead to the block. I'll look at the earth connection to the dash - easy enough to check, I guess, run a temporary good lead from the battery to the gauge - I'll do this.
Dash regulator? Not sure. There
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On a HQ-WB you need a wire from the battery -ve terminal to the body of the car. The engine, gearbox, diff etc are all rubber mounted so that if you just have a lead to the motor you are relying upon accelerator cable, clutch cable, fuel lines etc to carr |
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I'd plump for bad earthing Jason. Check your earth from the gauges to car body.
Also, make sure you have a good earth lead from motor to body, battery to radiator support (both as Byron said above) and run another from neg side of battery to guard/inne
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Thanks guys... after reading all this, I reckon that the old disconnected external regulator was still serving purpose as the body earth. Only the earth was connected, (fairly small wire though), so I'd say it'll be the problem. I had to cut it from th
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Hi Jason,
The flick in the tacho before starting is likely to be the 12 volts from the ignition feed getting to it and the needle jumping up to zero revs...
Yeah, got the photos mate, but did a round trip to Kalgoorlie yesterday (about 1200 k's) and
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Well you guys were all spot on. Temporarily put a connector back onto the earth wire I'd pulled off the old external regulator, just to see if it made a difference, and it's all sweet. Needles no longer jump - awesome!
I'll make up a better body eart
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Yeah mate. After more than 12 months with no success, I could have sold it 4 times in the last 4 days.... Anyway, it's gone now so I can get moving on the old girl again.
Cheers...Dave
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