Series iia fuel gage electrics....

[crazyfish]

So the fuel gauge isn't working. Dark green wire runs from the top of the gauge to the float. Both are bit hot. There are two empty spades on the bottom of the gauge. Am I missing something? Seems to be.

[crazyfish]

So the fuel gauge isn't working. Dark green wire runs from the top of the gauge to the float. Both are bit hot. There are two empty spades on the bottom of the gauge. Am I missing something? Seems to be.

Not hot....

[siiirhd88]

Power should enter one of the spades on the gauge, and the other spde goes to the sender. The sender varies the resistance to ground as level changes.

Here is a great writup from the SII Forum:

http://www.series2club.co.uk/forum/forum/index.php/topic,24221.0.html

Bob

[Tom109]

Sean,

When my gauge didn't work, I too had an empty spade. Turned out there was a disconnected wire hiding under the seatbox...

[Disco96JSWB]

Any progress on this, Sean?

In a Bugeye (Sprite, not IIA), the gauge is grounded to the dash via the securing bracket.
A solid green wire brings a 'regulated' 12volts into the gauge.
A green/black striped wire goes to fuel tank sender.

In my case, the gauge didn't move in the slightest when the ignition was switched on.
A test light on the green wire was bright, and somewhat dim on the green/black, which made me believe the sender was working. (This also verified the ground wire was good.)

I switched the wires on the gauge and still the needle didn't move at all, making me think the gauge was bad.
A spare gauge worked ok.

- Jeremy

[galen211]

You mean people actually use the gauge? On my SIII the gauge never went above 1/2 tank even if full. I always went by mileage. Except when the speedo cable broke....

[crazyfish]

You mean people actually use the gauge? On my SIII the gauge never went above 1/2 tank even if full. I always went by mileage. Except when the speedo cable broke....

Ha. No speedo either.

[crazyfish]

Ha. No speedo either.

Dark green wire is not hot. I'm thinking of running a keyed wire to either of the bottom spades. Anything wrong with that thought process?

I also need the 'holder' plate for the speedo cable to the gear box.

[siiirhd88]

The dark green wire should be directly off of the fuse box, as fused power with the ignition 'on'. The fuse is powered by a white wire from the ignition switch. The green wire should have power with the key on. If not, check the fuse, fuse clips and the power available at the fuse box. On the factory wiring, this same fuse powers the fuel gauge, wipers and brake lights.

The early trucks didn't use a seperate voltage stabilizer, as the stabilizer function was part of the gauge. The green with black tracer wire should run from the gauge to the sender. If the gauge reads full all of the time the green with black tracer wire is typically shorted to ground. Half full could be a bad sender winding or a problem with the float not set correctly or leaky.

Bob

[crazyfish]

Ok that certainly helps. Green with black does go to tank. Couldn't figure out where to get power.

[Lyle4LClover]

I'm confused. Don't you just drift to the side of the tarmac when the engine lets out due to lack of petrol? I always carry a spare 5 galllons of petrol to get back running again. The speedometer and fuel gauge are quite unnecessary. I think when the petrol is topped off it's a good time to add another quart of oil to the engine and tighten the bread bag tye wrap on the throttle linkage. it's also a good time to get the sticks out from under the truck that have been dragging on the road and check how much radiator surface is sticking out exposed over the dried on mud. The oil pressure gauge and indicator light (two of the four functioning safety and opertional controls on the dash) are quite important. To each his own I guess. All those guages and lights and such are quite distracting to the important part of driving in my opinion. :)