At 08:44 AM 9/29/2008, J Stewart wrote:
>now. The temp gauge stays right at the top of the "warm up" section
>of the gauge. It will go higher if a sit in traffic, but it has
>never gone above the LED. When it gets close to the LED the fan will kick on.

Check the sender resistance per the chart in Bentley.  Check at
operating temperature that the voltage at the sender terminal is the
same as the voltage at the gauge terminal -- if not, you have a bad
connection somewhere.  Find where the voltage changes, you've found
the bad place.

>  The fuel gauge is also erratic, it will register full right after
> a fill up, then usually within 20-25 miles will start moving
> around, sinking as low as 1/4 tank, then swing back up to full.

That sounds like a worn-out sender.

>  On occasion, the temp gauge will just go "dead" dropping all the
> way down, and when it does the fuel gauge does the same. Early on
> in trying to troubleshoot this, I swapped out the voltage
> stabilizer with two different used ones then a new one-same
> symptoms with all three. I then cleaned up the ground cluster under
> the dash-still no luck. I

Look for foil cracks.  Make sure the plug terminals are nice and fat
to give good contact. Set up some (red/yellow/green) LEDs with 1K
resistors along the supply path from plug to gauge.  Put one across
the voltage regulator -- it should be on continuously.  When the
gauges stop, the LED that lights (or gets brighter) will pinpoint the
problem area.  If the problem is outside the cluster, the one on the
voltage regulator will go out.

David

--
David Beierl - Providence RI USA -- http://pws.prserv.net/synergy/Vanagon/
'84 Westy "Dutiful Passage," '85 GL "Poor Relation"