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Re: temp gauge affected by headlight switch? Help me on this one... 200 1986

posted by  someone claiming to be Don Foster on  Mon Oct 30 22:40 CST 2000 [RELATED]

Tough to say without some serious troubleshooting.

  1. The temp gauge signal is "conditioned" by the compernsating board. When this board gives trouble, the temperature gauge becomes erratic—it can peg to the top, stay at zero, or wabulate. A small (genuine) temperature change can cause the gauge to swing from one extreme to the other.

  2. A bad or intermittent voltage regulator (aka "stabilizer," on the back of the cluster) can cause similar erratic behavior. This will also cause the fuel gauge to behave erratically (since both the fuel and temp gauges are powered by this regulator).

  3. A bad ground or connection in the cluster can cause flakey (indeterminant) gauge behavior, and often as a result of other electrical loads. These loads will upset the ground reference.

  4. And don't forget the ever-popular crumbling wiring harness. If the wire to the temperature sensor has crumbled insulation, a bare conductor might be intermittently touching ground........






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