74 Charger SE Dash Cluster Regulator (Gauges not working)

[crazybillnavy]

I installed a painless wire harness and everything seems to be wired correct. Brand new sending units for oil, temp., and fuel. Tach is wired completely separate and works along with speed and amp.

I tested the volt regulator and there is 12 volts going in and out with no pulsing. I purchased another regulator and it’s the same deal, 12 in and out with no pulsing. When I test the back of the gauges there is 12 volts going in and nothing coming out of the back of the gauges. Abviously nothing getting to the sending units. 

I have have read that it should be around 6 volts coming out of regulator but even the new one has 12 volts out. I got a new VRC601 regulator. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[DynoDave]

Hmmm...no experience with these myself. I thought they allowed about 5V to the gauges. But 5, 6, whatever, it shouldn't be 12.

Have you checked back with the manufacturer of the voltage limiter to see what they say?

Running that number through DuckDuckGo (a search engine), it seems to be the old standard mechanical limiter. It should work...millions did and do. But just to note, they can and do fail. And when they do, they can smoke your gauges. There is a modern solid state alternative, if you should find the existing one is bad.

RTE

[Nacho-RT74]

Voltage limiter needs to be grounded, if not, will provide full voltage.

If Rallye cluster, it gets the ground signal from a wire the underdash harness provides with a wider spade terminal, althought it can get some ground via chassis too as far cluster housing is propperly attached to the frame and limiter is tightly attached to the cluster

Standard cluster VL gets the ground on printed circuit board and is plugged to.

If gauges already got 12 volts, bad news, you could already burned them out

[crazybillnavy]

Just to give an update on this. The problem was I had the gauges grounded to the firewall, and all I had to do is ground the firewall to the battery. This fixed it, stupid grounds.

[DynoDave]

Glad you got it fixed. Yes, ground problems are PITA.