QuestionQUESTION: My speedometer and gas gauge are broken how would I go about fixing that?
ANSWER: I need a bit more information, please:
What exactly does the gas gauge do, if anything, and when does it do it?
Does both the speedometer AND the odometer not work, or does the odometer work?
And about you - how handy are you with small tools in dark, cramped spaces, working on your back with dirt falling in your eyes?
Answer those for me and I'll give you some advice.
Post a "follow up question" with your answers.
Dick
---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------
QUESTION: the gas gauge goes past full and stays on full for a long time and then drops quickly and when it says you have half a tank you really have a quarter tank. the speedometer and odometer both are broken. this would be my first experience.
ANSWER: OK, well, there's always a first time! Take the speedometer problem first - because it's likely to be simple.
Crawl under the dashboard with a good flashlight and some sort of safety glasses to keep the crud out of your eyes and find the stiff cable - about 5/16 of an inch in diameter, that goes into the back of the speedometer. It will be held in place by a plastic hook shaped thingy that you can push out of the way, then pull the cable back out of the speedometer head. When you get it out, look at the end of it. It should have a small inner core with a squared off end on it. Grab that with your finger and see if you can turn it a short ways. It should feel springy to you - in other words, you can turn it a little bit, but it will spring right back. If it turns freely and does not spring back, is it not making contact with the drive gear in the transmission, and that's your problem. Make sure it is pushed all the way back into it's outer sheath when you do this, and if it is, and still turns freely, it is either unplugged at the transmission, or it is broken inside. You will have to investigate further. The easy way to do this is to grab the end of the center core again and pull it out - all the way out. It will be very greasy and dirty, so don't let it touch anything you care about. Don't bend it sharply, just snake it out of there. When you pull it all the way out you should see another square end on it, if you do, the cable is OK and the problem is inside your transmission, or else the bottom end of the cable is not installed right down there. In that case, you'll have to get under the car and investigate. Use a safety stand - don't ever trust a jack, even an expensive one - they will come down on you and that will be the end of your car fixing days.
Back to the cable now: if the inner core doesn't have the square end on it, it's broken inside the sheath, and you'll have to disconnect it from the bottom end (under the car again) and take the two pieces of it to the auto parts place and see if they can match it up to a new one with the same length and ends on it.
Back to the twist test you did first, now:
If you DID feel springy resistance in that first test, the cable is OK, so now you have to do another test: Start the car with the cable end out where you can watch it, and move the car a few feet - you should see the cable end turning. If you do, all is OK from the top end of the cable down, and the problem has to be either that the cable wasn't plugged all the way into the speedometer head, or the speedometer unit is bad and will have to come out and be taken to a repair shop. So Make very sure it WAS plugged in all the way (the retainer was clipped on it to hold it in) and try it again - if it still doesn't indicate, it's off with it's head! You'll have to study how it is retained in the dash - and if it isn't obvious how to get it out, buy yourself a factory shop manual from one of the auto literature dealers (try www.faxonautolit.com) and that will give you step by step instructions. Get it out and take it to a speedometer shop for repair.
NOW - the gas gauge. These are notoriously unreliable - Yours is working, it is just out of calibration. Probably the sender has been replaced in the past, and the meatball that did it bent the arm that controls the float position in the tank. If you are willing to drain the gas tank, then take the tank down so you can remove the sender, you can take it out and by watching the dash indicator, bend the float arm until it more or less corresponds to the amount of gas in the tank. I'd set it so the half way indication on the gauge occurs about half way up in the middle of the tank depth, and settle for that. At least it will be near to right when you have half a tank - that's about the best you can do with these. My advice? Learn to live with it the way it is - keep track of when you need gas by paying attention to how far you've driven since you last bought gas - always fill the tank, and stop every 200 miles or so - you won't run out, and you won't worry about it any more.
If you need more info, I'll be here!
Dick
---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------
QUESTION: Now when I fix the speedometer will the odometer automatically start working? If not how do I fix it and is it possible to know how many miles I put on it since it broke?
AnswerI'm sorry I did not make that clear. The odometer is inside the speedometer instrument. It is driven by the same cable I talked about before - so when you have one fixed, you automatically fix the other.
As for guessing at how far you have driven since it was broken, I can only think of totaling up your gas receipts since then, and calculating how far you have driven by taking the number of gallons you poured into the tank and multiplying by the miles per gallon that you average. If you don't have any records of average MPG, I'd estimate that car gets about 15-16 MPG if it has the 318 V8 engine, and somewhat better if it has the slant 6 - maybe about 18, both with automatic transmission. If it has the slant 6 and a manual transmission with overdrive, it could get as much as 20 MPG, but I doubt it has that setup - few did.
If the speedometer and odometer were not working when you first got the car, there is no way to know how many miles the last owner drove it that way - you could ask him, I guess. There is nothing in the car that records mileage.
Dick
