Gauge Circuit Short?

agent20x

Well-known member
Joined
May 14, 2008
Messages
52
Location
Oxnard/San Luis Obispo, CA
OK so I am finally at the home stretch of interior reassembly and when I turn the key on to check some lights the fuse pops. I investigate a little and it turns out the power for the gauge circuit (the pink wires) is shorted to ground. I unplugged everything I could think of and its still shorted (about 6 ohms). Any Ideas how to find it? This really pisses me off. Everything was working not too long ago.
 
The gauge circuits are mylar plastic sheets printed with copper traces, rather primitive and easy to follow. Often the copper traces separate from the mylar backing and ground out or they break and cause an open circuit.
If you are handy with a soldering iron and have some light wire you can usually repair the printed circuit (bridge the breaks in the traces). If you prefer new, the best price for a new circuit is on ebay, I think Willcox has them.
 
Let me clarify a little more.
Pull the center gauge console out. On the back you will see the printed circuit I am talking about.
Here's a good example.
100_2678.jpg
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You can see that the copper traces on this one are in bad shape. This is also a good time to replace all of those gauge light bulbs!
 
The gauge circuits are mylar plastic sheets printed with copper traces, rather primitive and easy to follow. Often the copper traces separate from the mylar backing and ground out or they break and cause an open circuit.
If you are handy with a soldering iron and have some light wire you can usually repair the printed circuit (bridge the breaks in the traces). If you prefer new, the best price for a new circuit is on ebay, I think Willcox has them.

I'm not using the stock gauges. I am talking about with none of my gauges plugged in I am getting a short.
 
Get your meter out and start going back over your installation. This kind of detective work falls under the heading of SWAG. You start with a Simple Wild Ass Guess (SWAG) and go from there. If you know it is the pink wire/gauge circuit then you need to explore that some more. Sorry I can't be more specific.....:tomato:
 
Get your meter out and start going back over your installation. This kind of detective work falls under the heading of SWAG. You start with a Simple Wild Ass Guess (SWAG) and go from there. If you know it is the pink wire/gauge circuit then you need to explore that some more. Sorry I can't be more specific.....:tomato:

Yea thats kinda what I figured. Thanks for the help
 
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