INSTR CLUSTER ~ CV Regulator

[etel64 10]

I bought a electronic replacement Constant voltage regulator and printed circuit for my cluster and I cant seem to figure out why my Oil Pressure and fuel gauge are not working. This is a American Auto harness and there is 12v ignition power there. didnt have batery hooked up per instructions. dash lights work fine, im assuming these are a direct 12v supply. I checked the obvious fuse, connections etc.

 

I know htere is plenty of oil pressure since it hasnt thrown the bearings out the side and there is about 10gals in the tank.

 

Anyone have one of these bad from the start?

 

Any suggestions would be much appreciated.

[dzahm 10]

Any chance you damaged the plastic circuit? I wouldn't think the cvr is bad if other gauges work. I would pull the gauge panel and use a volt meter to check the circuits, you could maybe check output voltage from the cvr (IIRC its 5v- you might double ck that number)

[70mstang 11]

I burned a couple of the CV regulators trying to get my stock guages to work. Burned up a couple of the printed circuit boards too. It got to the point where I swapped everything out for aftermarket guages. so my 50 year old technology is gone :punk:

[LoneWolf2U 136]

Check the guages by grounding the sending unit wire and turn the key to On.

If the guages swing upwards, the sending units are bad.

[69gmachine 15]

If you have an old computer you can pull the power supply out and use it for testing. I don't know if they all have a 5VDC output but the one I had did. I used it to test the gauges and it worked great. Once you verify the gauge is working properly you can trace backwards from there. If you're getting 5 volts from the IVR, then it's just a matter of whether the sending unit is getting a good ground. One potential place for a bad connection is at the connector to the printed circuit interface. I cut strips of double sided tape and used it behind the contacts in the connector to make better contact with the PC.

[danno 128]

It is critical to know if your temperature gauge is working. If that works, then the instrument cluster has proper voltage in, is grounded ok, and the constant voltage (CV) unit is working ok.

 

Is your temperature gauge working ok?

[69mi 10]

1st do what mach1rider said and check the sending unit.

 

the new solid state voltage limiters need a good 12 volt source or they dont work properly.

 

i had a similar problem. this is an easy and fast check. run a wire directly from the pos terminal of the battery to the voltage limiter on the instrument panel. just hold or clip the wire to the back side of the limiter.

 

start the car and see if this works.

 

if it does work, you can find a 12 volt source on the acc side of the ignition plug and splice a wire from there back to the voltage limiter(instead of running a wire all the way from the battery).