The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area The Electrical Bay Short circuit

Me Again! While reading the electrical bay section, I read a posting on guage insulators. What are they? I've just rewired the truck using the ChevyDuty harness. I thought it was idiot proof but you know how that goes! Any way, I'm still having a hot shot under the dash and I have refaced the gauge cluster and speedometer before I rewired. There was some cardboard on the terminals but was badly desintigrated. I used electrical tape on the holes but that didn't work too well. Could the short be coming from the terminal posts at the point of contact with the gauge housing? Let me know about these about these cardboard insulators.

Thanks,
Buddha

most definitely!! those little pieces of "cardboard" need to be there [where originally applied] to insulate the hot wires from the case, which is grounded by the mounting - use pieces of "boxboard" if nothing else [from the kleenex box you emptied when you learned the price of replacement gauges]

Bill

Budda, if you want to be original on the "cardboard", try www.americanclassictrucktarts.com Part # SP811, "Gauge Warning Label Set + Insulators". As usual though, shipping is high, so if you need a few other things, it might help offset the shipping cost.

Thank you all for your help. It dawned on me after I logged off the other day about the terminal posts. So what I did was buy rubber grommets to place in the terminal post holes with matching rubber washers. Seems to me this would work better than the carboard insulator. (By the way, the Kleenex box is a great idea!) Now, let me ask you guys this, should I insulate both posts at the ammeter and fuel guages or just the positve sides? I won't do the install until the middle of this week. Look forward to hearing from you.

I don't know if I'd use a rubber grommet. Rubber dries out and breaks down and could cause a loose connection or short. I would stick with a cardboard or nylon washer. The ammeter definitely needs washers on both. Not sure about the rest.

I've made washers out of the lids off olieo/butter containers as long as there is not high heat the plastic holds up well easy to cut