The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area The Electrical Bay Gas gauge wiring

Installed new fuel guage,new wire harness, new sending unit. Turn on ign. and wire from switch to gauge got hot and melted the insulation. Any ideas?

need to get out the ohmeter and start checking, sounds like a dead short somewhere, maybe you have the wires reversed on the gauge - and that would probably have killed the new gauge

Bill

So then which side of the gauge is the hot wire to go to?

Crafty1,

This might depend on the year/gauge.

Many original gauges have a red warning tag around the sender post (I think) - warning not to attach the power source to that lead.

I think that Advance Design trucks (47-55) gauges have the sender-lead behind the "Empty" side of the gauge?

There should be a wiring diagram on this site. Find out for sure which post the "Hot" wire goes. Then even if the other wire is dead grounded it should not hurt the gage. If then the power wire gets hot, then you have a short in the gauge or a ground to the hot post of the gauge. I think my 57 goes to FULL when the sending wire is dead grounded. It has a spade plug to the gage, so I cannot explain which post is the hot post, but I think it is the one behind "empty" as mentioned above.

Yeah, I have that little red scrap of paper there and only the black arrow and hot can me made out. So naturally I connected the hot wire there. Another blown gauge. I could not be more frustrated with this. This should not be frickin rocket science. This is the third blown gauge. I should have just replaced all this ancient crap with Dolphin gauges and called it good. I would have had less money in it. I cant believe with all the good info and knowledge on this site I cant get the answers needed to wire one little Chinese crap gauge. SOrry. Just blowing steam.

What answers were not able to get ?

Hi Tim, Cant seem to get a straight answer on which post is hot. I suspect now that there is a short in the wire from the tank to the gauge causing a problem. I will pull the bed wood tonight to access the tank (48) Still not sure exactly which post to put the wire on a 12 volt gauge. Some say E side some say F side. I will work out the sending unit issue and then try again. Classic parts are out of gauges for now. Guess I cleaned them out! LOL The truck had ugly autometer gauges when I got it and I would like to put it back to a more classic look. Have had really bad luck with the old style gauges and speedo. This is the last attempt. after this I pop for Dolphin gauges.

Thanks for such a good clear picture Gus. I better run out and double check mine. Steve

I have two after market 12 volt fuel gauges. They are both stamped on the back. Sending unit on the full side. 12 volt power on the empty side. Like DADS50 shows. Of course I read this after I took someones advice and hooked them up backwards and fried both. I ordered the third one yesterday.

i wired mine up the wrong way but it didnt fry my gauge so its not always a given.