Join the
3FE List and read through the
Leasons Learned and Fix tips under the files section. You will find a wealth of info in there about all of these goofy quirks. There is a folder called
Crazy Guages that has all the info you need to fix the problem you are describing.
None of the above links will work untill after you join the 3FE list.
Here's the crazy guages fix:
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-----Original Message-----
From: mikeg_90265
To: 3FE@y...
Sent: 11/10/02 12:57 AM
Subject: [3FE] my gauges are crazed! Acting kookie and need guidence!
So I'm cruising along up the coast to Santa Barbara and being
relatively new to owning the greatest car in the world I take a look
at my gauges quite a bit to get to know them. I'm looking at my fuel
gaueg go from 3/4 up to full and then back down and the same time the
temp gauge climbs a little and then comes down too!.The kicker is
that this was on flat highway! So any geniuses want to tell what
happened? Also I have only heard the electric cooler come on once and
I could have sworn someone said that they should come on all the time
after you turn your car off. malibumike
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--- In 3FE@y..., K ...wrote:
Yeah, this is a very common affliction on FJ62's, many of them do
this. Very scary, I about freaked out the first time mine did it.
The fix is very easy, costs nothing. I had my dash apart this summer
to fix a wiring issue, so I pulled the gauge apart and took some pics.
First, remove the main dash panel, where the gauges are. Be careful on
the thin section around the radio, 14 year old plastic gets very brittle.
I find this is MUCH easier to get off if you remove the steering wheel first,
mine pops off very easily now, although you might need a puller.
Once you get the big panel out, lay it flat on a bench, remove the
left cluster that has the has the gauges in it. Turn this over, remove the
small screws that hold the clear plastic lens, take this stuff off:
http://www.yankeetoys.org/KLF/Clifford/TempGauge/ClusterOpen.jpg
Flip the cluster back over, remove the four very small nuts that hold
in the fuel gauge (not the temp gauge).
http://www.yankeetoys.org/KLF/Clifford/TempGauge/GaugeRemove.jpg
GENTLY pull the fuel gauge out of the cluster. If you look carefully
inside, you'll find a set of contacts, this is actually a voltage regulator,
presumably to keep a constant voltage supplied to the gauges. Well,
after many millions of off-and-on cycles, these contacts get oxidized, and
don't work correctly. They are in the center of this picture:
http://www.yankeetoys.org/KLF/Clifford/TempGauge/GaugeOpen.jpg
Take a sliver of fine grit sand paper, I used 400-grit wet/dry paper,
and skip it thru the contacts, clean them off. Don't take a lot off, or
you'll throw off the calibration for the regulator. Once clean, put it all
back together. I used a can of compressed air to blow all the dust out of
the cluster so none got trapped behind the lens. Mine works fine now,
haven't had a recurrance of the spikes since.
Incidently, now that the dash is apart, this is a good time to replace
all the bulbs. It's only a few bucks, but you'll be surprised how much
brighter your gauges are with fresh bulbs behind them. I had to get them from
the dealer, although honestly I didn't look very hard. Just get them ahead
of time so they're on hand when you do the job.
HTH...
-KLF
