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Volt gage

Gordo

Jedi Hopeful
Offline
While driving this morning, I noticed that my volt gage was going into the red (+15 volts). After I got home, I put my multi-meter on the battery and started the car. Got a reading of 14.04 volts. The gage was still reading WAY high.

Is reading off the battery the correct way to see if the voltage is correct?

Could the voltage stabilizer cause this? Looking at the schematic tells me probably not.

Can I tweek the volt gage or would I have to send it out?

Thanks, Gordo
 

PeterK

Yoda
Offline
14V indicates a normally charging system from alternator output.

I think the voltage stabilizer just drops the voltage to 10 volts for running the electric fuel and temp gauges.

No sure why your voltage read higher than the 14V. Did you have the headlights and heater on during the high reading, or anything else that would draw more power - electric fan?

Maybe a loose connection at the back giving erroneous readings?
 

Billm

Yoda
Country flag
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I would hook your home DVM to the same wires as your dash-voltmeter to verify readings during driving and them adjust the dash-voltmeter when you find that it is just reading high.
Bill
 

Alreadyinuse

Freshman Member
Offline
Assuming your DVM is accurate, then I think your voltmeter has shifted calibration. I just recently went through this with a Stag voltmeter; found that one of the adjustments was so loose that just setting the gauge on the bench would move the calibration. A little Loctite fixed it up.

Voltage stabilizer only affects temp & fuel, not volts.

Voltmeter wasn't particularly easy to tweak up; I wound up turning a little tool on the lathe to engage the hole in the case and apply force to the slot. There are two adjustments; the one behind the low end of the scale affects the entire range, while the one behind the high end mostly affects the high end. But they interact to some extent, so you have to move back and forth.
 
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