Autometer issue
Thread Starter
Joined: Dec 2004
Posts: 1,294
Likes: 0
From: Dallas (Richardson), TX, USA
Autometer issue Hey all,
Not sure where to post this... this forum was my best guess. I have three Autometer gauges in my A-pillar, and one of them has stopped working. My car has been down for months now because of a cracked radiator that I was too lazy to fix. Before I realized it was cracked, the car got pretty damn hot (245+).
Now, that being said, the water temperature gauge is not working. I have the Sport Comp II PC gauges, which do a full sweep when powered on, and this one isn't doing that. It simply doesn't move. However, if I switch the boost gauge with the water temp gauge, the water temp gauge does its full sweep when connected to the boost gauge connector, and the boost gauge will not power on when connected to the water temp connector.
My first thought was a bad ground or hot lead. I checked those, and they're good. I used a test light on the connector that goes into the back of the gauge and confirmed there's good hot and ground. I even checked the pin out in the instructions just for fun.
My question to you is this... is it possible that the overheating of the engine cooked the sending unit, and somehow the sending unit has the ability to prevent the gauge from working? It's late and the car is hot, so I'm not going to go disconnect the sensor to find out yet. I probably will tomorrow, though. I was just curious if anyone had some insight on the matter.
Thanks in advance.
Not sure where to post this... this forum was my best guess. I have three Autometer gauges in my A-pillar, and one of them has stopped working. My car has been down for months now because of a cracked radiator that I was too lazy to fix. Before I realized it was cracked, the car got pretty damn hot (245+).
Now, that being said, the water temperature gauge is not working. I have the Sport Comp II PC gauges, which do a full sweep when powered on, and this one isn't doing that. It simply doesn't move. However, if I switch the boost gauge with the water temp gauge, the water temp gauge does its full sweep when connected to the boost gauge connector, and the boost gauge will not power on when connected to the water temp connector.
My first thought was a bad ground or hot lead. I checked those, and they're good. I used a test light on the connector that goes into the back of the gauge and confirmed there's good hot and ground. I even checked the pin out in the instructions just for fun.
My question to you is this... is it possible that the overheating of the engine cooked the sending unit, and somehow the sending unit has the ability to prevent the gauge from working? It's late and the car is hot, so I'm not going to go disconnect the sensor to find out yet. I probably will tomorrow, though. I was just curious if anyone had some insight on the matter.
Thanks in advance.
Thread Starter
Joined: Dec 2004
Posts: 1,294
Likes: 0
From: Dallas (Richardson), TX, USA
It turns out that this ended up being a problem with either a pinched or melted wire that I think was shorted out. I tried unplugging a sensor for a working gauge to see how it would react, and the gauge still worked aside from showing a random value. So, I tried unplugging the sensor for the faulty gauge, and it still wouldn't respond to either button being pressed and didn't do its start-up sequence. I tried to back-pull the wires, but they were stuck on something I couldn't see or get my hands on. I cut the wires, ran some new ones, and it works now. Just thought I'd put the solution up here in case anyone had the same issue.
