16 replies to this topic

[Dan]

The dash lights aren't on the stabilised output. I think that may be the source of your problem, you've got something shorted somewhere. The lamps could be overloading the chip. Although I must say the fuel gauge seems to be working more or less properly. The red isn't used to indicate empty, it indicates reserve. At the top of the red there should be around a gallon of fuel left above the fuel pickup. When looking into the tank to check the level bear in mind the fuel pickup is about 1 1/4" above the bottom of the tank. And it's very common for a full tank to read off the gauge in any car. I can't remember about the Nippon gauges but certainly the Smiths gauges have trims to adjust the top and bottom of the range to calibrate them to the senders that are fitted. They are just little slots at the top and bottom of travel that a small flat driver can adjust. What resistances did you measure for the coolant sender?

Incidentally none of the warning lamps are meant to light up with bidirectional current. The charge warning has to allow current in both directions, but the lamp only has one thing to warn you of. It can easily be setup to work with an LED.

[novakor]

wow thanks again for the quick replies!
I don't think there are any shorts, everything works as it should apart from the guages were high after the mod.
More likely I'm wrong about the bulbs being 10v !

wish the nippons had trims for adjustment but my little change seems to be doing the job (so far anyway!)
I think the temp sender was more than 150 ohm on startup and down to the 80 ish as it warmed...
my trial and error aproach wasn't done with much recording of my results