Temp gauge repair

[Joseph James]

This may help someone else. In a nutshell-count the turns. If you use a slightly larger wire wire you can use less turns.

This is the old coil that was burned out from a garage changing my battery cable and leaving it loose.

The needle is held on by two bends-one from the coil form and one from a stationary piece. It is easier to rewind the coil with the needle off plus it is very delicate.

Completed winding. I salvaged wire from an old horizontal drive transformer on an old tv chassis. I used enamel wire. You need a match or lighter to burn the enamel at the ends of the wire or you will have no conductivity.

This isn’t hard to do and is cheaper than buying a set of gauges if you can even find any.

 

[Ross Wooldridge]

Very interesting!!

 

[Joseph James]

Very interesting!!

My old style mechanical VR failed and fried the gauges. I have proper nichrome wire on the way to rewind both.

I have a bunch of LM317 voltage regulators laying around. That will replace the old mechanical unit. May see if I can build a circuit to pulse the voltage like the original. Usually, a RC circuit can do that.

I did find original gauges from Murray Park. God bless that guy. He always has whatever I have asked for. I am going to put those in and I can rewind and calibrate my original ones at my leisure.