hybridphil

I have had glow gauges installed for a while...but never hooked up to power as I couldn't do it before. I am still puzzled by it after attempting it today. I ended up ripping out the relay cuz I got kind of mad and tried to hook the gauges up directly...I figured....low current draw, no relay needed, I could just hook it up to a switch. So I have the two wires leading to the multiple wires leading to the gauges hooked up to the harness at the headlight switch. One to red, one to black. At all the terminals leading to the gauges, it reads -14 V. But the gauges won't turn on whatsoever?? I checked the wiring going to the gauges themselves and they were fine. Logically....if there's 14 V going through those wires...shouldn't the gauges light up?

Sith_Lord

Simple...get a probe light. Pull the guage cluster loose so you can access the light switch wires. What you want to do is turn on the lights and find the hot wire that is on when the lights are on and off when they are off. Connect your glow guages hot wire to this wire and ground the grouhd wire to the body or another good ground point. All done.......

hybridphil

Did exactly as you said except I used a multimeter instead of a probe light. Found the wire, that was 13 V with back gauge lights on and 0 with them off. It was a tan coloured wire with a black stripe. Hooked up one of the wires to the gauges to that and the other to a ground on the steering column block. Put everything back together...still no glow gauges working...just the backlights that are originally there. Perhaps the gauges NEED a relay? Doesn't make logical sense to me but my knowledge with electronics is...limited. Help.....

X-JaVeN-X

maybe the bulb or whatever lights up in the gauges is shot...that's the next most logical thing to me...if the gauges are getting power and you have them grounded well (a good ground is VERY crucial in any electrical wiring) and still not coming on, then I'd suspect the gauges themselves

drago86

If they are indiglow gauges they need to have some sort of powersupply to work. Are you sure the relay was just a relay?

hybridphil

hmm it was a black box with wires coming out of it....it had the two power wires going out, two wires going out to the glow lights, and one wire going out to the on/off switch...i still have the "relay" but it didn't work any more so with it than it does now....i'll try reusing the thing. They are indiglo gauges....I just figured...hook them up directly to 12V, then that is their powersupply. No?

drago86

no, indiglo takes 150-200v to work http://www.howstuffworks.com/question296.htm

hybridphil

Ahhh alright so I'm guessing the black box was a very small current converter with the transistors...I'll hook up the proper wiring that I currently have up to the box again...I'll keep you guys posted. Thanks!

gear_grinder

iTrader: (4)

i wonder if the "black box" is a current ragualtor. evenly limmits and devides the current to the gauges. you could have posibly wrecked the stuff inside the overlays that glows but i'm just an amiture i keep the regulator on mine and spliced it into the harness in the cruise control, i have to use the little button switch it came with but its good to have because there bright and i could see them giving some people head aches. hope u get it figured out.

hybridphil

Alright so I rehooked up the box and success! I had trouble putting the cluster surround back on because of all the butt connectors but i got it back on. My switch doesn't work, but the lights go on and off when the two switch wires touch each other. Took out my air pump at the same time....as irrelevant as that is. I went out for a drive and my lights just went out on me. Also the original lights stopped working for some reason. I played around with it till it got dark but I couldn't keep the lights to stay on steady. They'd always go off after I'd try to put the gauge cluster back on. I'm going to try regrounding tomorrow but I don't think that's the problem....

hybridphil

Alright....so after regrounding...nothing worked whatsoever....I was puzzled so I tried rewiring some stuff with no success. I was going to go and try replacing my tps, I go back to my car and I smell burning plastic. The black box burned a bunch of stuff around it and nearly caught on fire! I wonder if I can talk to the company I bought it from and get something like a refund or new gauges....let me know what you guys think. Or would there be a possibility of getting a converter from a hardward store or something? I ended up cutting the box out so it wouldn't start a fire or anything...

MmSadda

iTrader: (2)

I just bought my FC, and I don't care too much for the look of the stock orange/red glow.... I think I might want to change it.
Any chance you'd be so kind as to post some pictures of how your new gauges look, and where you found them?

hybridphil

I bought them off of Ebay...they look really cool at night when they work....I'll try and get some pics of them tomorrow but not working because....yeah....it's broken.

RoughRex

yeppers...that sounds familiar. I got those Ebay glow gauges too. The power inverter that came with them burned up within 24hrs of installation... They either CRAP or I wired them incorrectly. I had them wired directly to the power for the stock gauge lights so there's a chance that the inverter was not getting the correct voltage (it's supposed to be 12VDC I think). Anyway, I took them out a few weeks later and decided I like the stock gauges better anyway. I think it would be cool if I could get the original gauge faces remade with blue tint instead of orange. My wife drives a 2001 VW and I love the way the gauges look(Blue & Red).

mikaz

Edit, nevermind this post

siguy2k

iTrader: (3)

how did you guys take your needles off to put them in? I put mine in and i cant seem to get them to read right. Any help would be much appreciated. thanks.

RoughRex

You aren't supposed to take the needles off to put these in. You just gently bend the glow faces and slide the hole over the needle. HOWEVER...I took mine off because I couldn't follow directions either..... You just have to be VERY carefull.

hybridphil

I slid the needles through the hole and it did set them off. I just pushed them past their max and then pushed them back down to where it would read 0 for all the gauges. I thought I ruined them the first time I did this but everything worked perfectly fine and I've done this a couple times now.