Flormat

I pulled the guage to replace some bulbs. I noticed the back of the fuel gauge has a resistor and it looked to be fried. I found in another post that it is a 100 ohm resistor. I put in a new one from radio shack and now the guage does not work at all. Before I did this the guage worked fine except for not going past the 3/4 mark. What's the problem here?

srv

Not going past the 3/4 mark is a common problem and you can find the cure by doing a search. According to some posters here, the culprit more than likely is a crimped vent hose on the fuel tank.

As for the old resistor, did you measure it's resistance with an ohm meter?

What kind of iron are you using for soldering?

You should be using a 15 watt soldering iron.

It is possible that when re-soldering the new resistor in, you may have over-heated it and burned it out.

Dozman

If I am not mistaken the resistor in question is a socketed resistor, does not need to be soldered.

John D.

Flormat

Correct Dozman- no solder for the resistor. After pulling the instruments back out I see I was mistaken... the resistor is for the volt meter. All this time I thought it was for the fuel gauge... damn beer. So I didn't mess with fuel gauge at all and now it just won't work! Crimped vent hose eh? I'll have to look into that. I did just replace the fuel pump and filter. Thanks guys

Dozman

That resistor you replaced was for the excitor loop if I am correct.

Someone step in and correct me if I am wrong.

John D.

Flormat

I think I found the problem. After close examination I found two places on the circuit board where the there was a break in the circuit. Looks like I need a new one. What a pisser.

WallyP

A new one for the '81 is less than $50.

Flormat

Thanks Wally, I'll be calling you very shortly.