Hey guys, my fuel gauge has never worked properly, and I have decided to turn to this forum for help again as this is stumping me. First, some background information regarding the problem:
Originally, it would start to move whenever you turned the key left or right but it would stop before getting to the E mark, however if I unscrewed the gauge cluster and pulled it out a bit it would start to read "properly", though I was never able to confirm this. This sounded like a grounding issue to me, however while diagnosing it for a few days I accidently fried the gauge, so I have to rebuild it.
Pictured below is the extent of the damage caused by me frying it after I took it apart:
It charred the wire pretty bad, thankfully I had a quick reaction to it and was able to prevent an electrical fire or further damage to the gauge. Here is a picture of the rebuild I did, (I also had to replace the white wire with a copper wire because when I turned the key it blew up instantly):
I attempted fixing this the best I could, though a critical error I made was I used the wrong gauge of copper wire, (I used 24 gauge), which seems to not play nice at all and caused my temperature gauge to instantly move on start-up to about the middle before I shut off the car. Obviously, it is letting too much voltage through, which is why I need your guy's help on which gauge of wire I need and any other useful tips. I am also aware of the shoddy connections and soldering, I am pretty new to all of this, but I did test it with a multimeter and it was all connected fine. I appreciate any helpful responses and I hope this forum can help me solve this problem.
Originally, it would start to move whenever you turned the key left or right but it would stop before getting to the E mark, however if I unscrewed the gauge cluster and pulled it out a bit it would start to read "properly", though I was never able to confirm this. This sounded like a grounding issue to me, however while diagnosing it for a few days I accidently fried the gauge, so I have to rebuild it.
Pictured below is the extent of the damage caused by me frying it after I took it apart:
It charred the wire pretty bad, thankfully I had a quick reaction to it and was able to prevent an electrical fire or further damage to the gauge. Here is a picture of the rebuild I did, (I also had to replace the white wire with a copper wire because when I turned the key it blew up instantly):
I attempted fixing this the best I could, though a critical error I made was I used the wrong gauge of copper wire, (I used 24 gauge), which seems to not play nice at all and caused my temperature gauge to instantly move on start-up to about the middle before I shut off the car. Obviously, it is letting too much voltage through, which is why I need your guy's help on which gauge of wire I need and any other useful tips. I am also aware of the shoddy connections and soldering, I am pretty new to all of this, but I did test it with a multimeter and it was all connected fine. I appreciate any helpful responses and I hope this forum can help me solve this problem.