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The infamous 'voltage stabilizer' or whatever the proper term is.
DON'T USE THE CAR UNTIL YOU FIX THIS OR YOU WILL FRY BOTH GAUGES!!!
The gauges are designed to run on 8 or 9 volts (not sure of the actual value) which is provided by a resistor gadget on the back of the instrument panel (looks like a small silver relay). An additional 'feature' of that gadget is that it provides a brief shot of straight 12 volt current when the key is first turned on to make the gauges jump up all lively, instead of languidly creeping up to their readings. After a second of 12 volt, little wires wrapping a bimetallic strip inside warm it up and break the 12 volts so they get 8 volts, ensuring that the gas gauge in particular is too sluggish to react to all the sloshes in the tanks like the nervous twitchy earlier gauges did.
And, after 5 - 10 - 15 - 20 - N years the little warming wires break and suddenly the gauges just get continuous 12 volts, which will in fairly short order overheat their innards and render them inoperative. As a really quick fix you might try unhooking the temp and gas sender wires on the engine and tank, preserving the gauges until you have a chance to pull the instrument panel and remove the voltage stabilizer. Then you have to track down one that works. Can't say how hard that is now. I think I recall Ron Kwas (SWEM Swedish Embassy) talking about making a modern replacement, but I don't know if he did.
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I'm JohnMc, and I approved this message.
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