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Temperature Guage on 84 Interstate Not Working
Hi All, new to the board and I have been a bit overwhelmed with the amount of info contained here.

I do have a situation and would appreciate any help.

My 84 Interstate temperature guage is not working at all, fuel guage is fine.

Is there a way to test the guage itself? I have replaced the guage with a different one and it still does not work. I read somewhere that you could take the wire off of the temperature sensor and short it to ground with the key on, the guage should move all the way to the right, remove the short and it should return all the way to the left. I have also read about the 7v regulator, where should I check for the 7 volts? I have the instrument cluster out of the bike (still connected) and I did check the voltage between the terminals on the back of the temp and fuel guages and ground, could not find any 7v reading.

Neither of the guages I have will pass the short to ground test, is it possible to have 2 bad guage?

Thanks
Dale
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#1 07-14-2010, 03:55 AM,
Welcome to the site. Do you have a Honda manual? There is a section with pictures and instructions on how to test the temperature gauge and sensor on page 18-23. If you don't have a manual I will try to copy the page and post it for you. PM me if you don't have a manual.
Ride safe have fun and enjoy. Lane
1985 Aspencade
2002 Vulcan
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#2 07-14-2010, 04:51 AM,
Thanks Bluewing, PM sent....
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#3 07-14-2010, 05:15 AM,
See if this helps.

[Image: GL1200%20heat%20gauge%20and%20sensor%20testing.png.jpg]
Ride safe have fun and enjoy. Lane
1985 Aspencade
2002 Vulcan
Reply
#4 07-14-2010, 07:34 AM,
Bluewing,

I have a similar diagram/procedure in one of the manuals I have, if I am reading it correctly that is for testing the sensor. Is there a way to test just the guage?
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#5 07-14-2010, 02:15 PM,
I have the instrument cluster out where I can work on it and there are 4 terminals on the back of the cluster for the fuel and temp guages, I have checked between all 4 terminals and each terminal to ground and can not find a 7 volt reading. How do I check to see if the 7v regulator is working properly?
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#6 07-15-2010, 01:35 AM,
Well after many hours of messing with things I finally have the temp gauge working. Since I had 2 sets of gauges and neither of the temps worked I figured I had a set to play with so I started playing.

On one set if you moved the fuel needle it had a very little resistance and would move slowly back to empty on its own, the temp needle had a lot more resistance and would stay wherever you moved it to.
On the second set the fuel needle did the same as the first but the temp needle had a lot more resistance and would slam back to cold when you let it go.

Looking at the first set there was a lot of gunk accumulated on the bottom that was preventing it from moving freely. I used some electrical contact cleaner (not sure where I got it, been around for awhile) and it also appeared that the needle was slightly bent. After cleaning it off and straightening the needle it started moving just like the fuel needle so I figured I was good to go but no.....

Using a 6 volt battery across the terminals (Thanks Bluewing) the fuel needle would slowly work its way to full and back to empty after the battery was removed, not so with the temp needle. I looked at the gauge again and noticed that both the temp and fuel gauges have identical mechanisms. There is an extra connection to the left of the fuel gauge (looking at it from the back) that connects to a wire when installed. All this is intertwined with some very fine wire that coils around some type of metal that is connected to a bar that is connected to the needles.

I assume that with power applied the coils produce a magnetic field that causes the bar to move thusly moving the needle, the more power the more the needle moves, anyway I could not see a way to replace the temp gauge with the extra working fuel gauge because of the way the screw terminal was mounted in the plastic housing.

So I looked at the solder connections (there was some corrosion), cleaned them up real good and resoldered all of them. I did not want to use to much heat in fear of breaking the very fine wire.....

To make a long story short I cleaned everything up, straightened the needle and resoldered everything both gauges passed the 6V test, put it back in the bike and presto I now have a working temp and fuel gauge.......

Never could get the other one to work.....

After getting the temp gauge to work I saw she was running hot and found out my fan wasn't kicking in, pulled the plug off the thermo switch and shorted them together and the fan came on........Damn a bad thermo switch.....

Will post a new topic on how I fixed that........

Thanks for all the help
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#7 07-17-2010, 10:34 AM,
I am glad you got it figured out, good work.
Ride safe have fun and enjoy. Lane
1985 Aspencade
2002 Vulcan
Reply
#8 07-17-2010, 07:24 PM,


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