Twitchy Temp Guage....Please Help!

[Guest Anonymous]

Hi guys, writing because my '75 o2 has been running great but just receintly my temp guage is acting wierd. While driving it will reach the nid-point, but then jumps to about 3/4 or more, but again it's a twitch that makes it jump. Sometimes it "twiches" back down to the mid-point, it is a bit nerve racking driving it, but I'm 99% sure that is the problem. I have popped the hood after driving it and the needle is up ther just to see of the motor is burning up, but it's fine and gain, every once in a while it does drop down to where it is suposed to be. One other issue, which may not be related to it is that when I turn on the turn signal, it would "twitch" a tiny bit up and down with the signal. Not sure if it may be a ground issue or possibly a bad sending unit. If anyone else has had this problem before or any ideas, I'd love to your experiences or ideas.

Thanks....Dave.

[_z_]

I've seen this a lot on 02's.

So far its always been a grounding problem. Check the ground from the cluster to the firewall AND check the engine ground.

I ended up running an extra ground from my engine block to the firewall on my tii and all the guages became rock solid.

My temp guage used to jump with the bass beat in my sterio and the same deal with the turn signals.

bet if you clean up those grounds it'll start working

best of luck!

-z

[ths916m3]

One thing you can try if you havent done so or if it hasnt been already done is...on the back of the instument panel there are two screws on the back center of temp/gas gauge. You can run two wires from those screws to one wire that is grounded to a good ground point under the dash.

I put open ended connecters that could slide under the screws and connected them to a male or female quick connect and the other end was female/male then attached to ground point under dash. Works great

[c.d.iesel]

REMOVE THE INSTRUMENT CLUSTER AND DISASSEMBLE

clean all the little metal / electrical contact points,

replace all the peanut bulbs at this time, clean the inside of the gauge windows, reassemble with care that all the metal contacting pins and flat

mating points are making good contact . juttering guage readings

solved.

[Guest Anonymous]

I'll have to try this out. It will be a good time to fix my Tech. It doesn't work when I turn on the head lights. It dies once the lights are turned on, the light doesn't light up and the tech needle drops. I don't doubt it also ties in with this problem.

Thanks again guys....Dave.

[jonny]

Do this and run the ground to the firewall and jump to the block.

ALL will be solved.

[DukeRimmer]

Probably grounds, but could be cracked circuit board. [/img]

[danjrusdug]

It was the ground from the battery to the fender that was not connected well. I scraped some paint to ensure a good ground and screwed it in tight. It worked like a champ.

Good luck.

Doug

'73tii Atlantik

'72 Ceylon - New custom Recaros, rear shelf vinyl, trunk panels & vinyl, and a complimentary shift boot just arrived from Seams Perfect yesterday! I can't wait to get to the Post Office.

[BarryA]

If you make a ground harness similar to the one in the photo, use wire in the closest shade of brown to the factory ground leads you can find. Months or years (and maybe a couple of owners) down the road, extra wires in electrial system in random colors can be REAL confusing.

Using wire colors that match the codes in the factory harness can help save a bunch of time in figuring out why they're there and where they go.

[lynnkylewood]

here is what i did. cleaned the neg battery terminal, cleaned the ground wire to body, cleaned the ground in trunk under pannels. nothing still jumpy. then before i went with the grounding of the gauges in back of cluster, i tried this. Connected a wire brown from the battery neg terminal to the stud that connects the fuel pump to the head. Guess what the needle comes up as it should and has not twitched once. A lot easier than pulling out the inst. cluster and grounding the guage. try it

[DaveyG67]

I finally addressed my "jumpy" Temp Gauge needle after several weeks. I went the route of disconnecting the ground cable from the battery, fender & engine block and cleaned all the connections with some degreaser & a wire brush... BINGO! Problem solved... glad I went that route first rather than removing the gauge cluster!  Thanks guys!