Alrighty then, heres my predicament...

My temp guage is acting slower than it should, and its reading lower than it should, however...

I was playing with my intrument cluster, and when i put it back in, one of the electrical connectors didnt connect properly, because of this, the tacho didnt work, the fuel guage went fairly quickly up to MAX and the temp guage was working its way slowly but surely up to max aswell..

I looked on the back of the cluster, and theres a silver thing with a green "blob" in it, im guessing this is the 7 volt regulator, its the only thing that comes close to that description... And my "blob" had a crack right across the center...

I dont think the temp guage reads low because of the actual temp of the coolant, as when you run the car, the temp guage is still at very low, and then then thermo fan kicks in to cool it down... If you leave the car, or do stop-start traffic (especially in summer) the temp guage will read the middle of the band like it should..

So do you think my bad temp guage is because of this damaged 7 volt regulator and i should go visit the wreckers?

the dash voltage regulator usually only works on the fuel and temp gauge circuits not the tacho. if u suspect the temp gauge is faulty replace the instrument cluster, there dirt cheap for a gen1, and a temp gauge sender is only about $10 new so may as well replace it too and know everything works well. low temp in winter could be no thermostat

Meph,

I was having similar problems to you with my gauges, IE they were reading really low, and sometimes not reading at all.. (The fuel gauge is still faulty, but that's the sender). I replaced the regulator in the back of the cluster (the green blob) with one from the wreckers, and all was good.. I'd try that before you go spending too much money on replacing sender units etc..

i have a spare cluster i can send ya if u like

i had a similar problem only it was completely differant.

my temp guage was not working, i earthed the little ***** out and worked out my temp sender was out, went and got a new one from da wreckers and it was all good.

Spent the rest of the day playing workshop cricket with the dodgy one :P

thanks turbo charade, but i think ill just visit the wreckers, i have one or two other things to do. I think ill go to a pick a part place, the wreckers around here suck.

no problem, it was brendans anyway :P

yeah it's mine. don't think u can give it away. unless u actually want the tacho out of it since u dont have one :P

Replaced my regulator the other day... The one in my cluster wasn't green anymore (more a brownish/black with a huge lump in the middle...lol ) now my guages aren't unpredictable and stop working at the drop of a hat...

Thanks for your input guys.

Ive been thinking, because the fuel guage runs off the voltage regulator and thats acting just like all other TN fuel guages, i think it may not be the regulator.

And as i said, on hot days it reads higher than on colder days. If i stop in traffic it goes pretty close to the normal readings and on the highway it gets pretty low so I was thinking it may be the sender, i mean they must deteriorate, and it seems to me that the sender is sensitive to higher temps, like driving in the city versus driving on the highway there must be a few degrees temp drop in the coolant. what do you think?

I was thinking it may be the thermostat, but ive replaced it twice with the ones that were supposed to be for the magna (said on box) and they both had identicle results so i wouldnt think its that...

And there are 2 sensors in the radiator, which one is for the gauge?

Meph,

The temp gauge sender is on top of the inlet manafold (carb, dunno about EFI) on the left hand side. If you've got an auto - it'll have two pins, if not - just one (I think).

Nah ive got a manual EFI.

I thought the one in the inlet manifold (on the efi's) was for the ECU, and the two in the radiator, one was for the temp guage and one was for the thermal fan.

I thought the one in the inlet manifold (on the efi's) was for the ECU, and the two in the radiator, one was for the temp guage and one was for the thermal fan.

I'm pretty sure that the sender in the radiator are both for the fans. There's two for redundancy in the cooling.

Because it's EFI, perhaps it uses the two wire sender in the manafold, I'm sure that in the carb auto that one is for the gauge and the other's for the auto computer. Maybe if you had an EFI auto, the two wire sender would double-up one output for both the computers..

I can't see why the sender would be in a different location.. All I can suggest is take a closer look at the inlet manafold.. Have you got a gregories?

yeah i got a gregories, and a few days off coming up so ill have a closer look.