Tachometer Stopped Working


Update

So we went to Vista Ford and talked to the resident Ford GT expert. He seems knowledgeable.. He told us to buy a new battery, and that the oem battery is junk after 3 years. He suggested charging, but said that it may not even work. He mentioned that the gauge "failure" is most likely due to an old battery and that should be replaced before shelling out big money for new gauges and other parts. We are going to charge the batt and see if that does anything, and in a couple days we will get a new batt. Ill report any new developments! You'd think that the manual would include a comment about the gauges failing when battery is low...if thats the case. Im crossing my fingers!
 
ShelbyStang, give me an update when you know something. I seem to have the same symptoms with my tach.

Thanks,
Rick
 
:frown:frown:frown

You guys are a jinx. I got in my car today after 3-4 weeks and went for a little cruise. My problem was a little different. Tach worked fine, but nothing else did. Fuel, boost, oil pressure etc.....all dead. Stopped after the car warmed up and restarted with no further problems. I am going to run her again tomorrow. I am hoping it was just the chilly weather/lack of use for a few weeks.

If it was because the battery was starting to get low and needed recharging would that affect the tune loaded into my car??? Does the car revert back to the stock tune if the battery dies? I would assume you would only have to reflash if the battery completely died. Anyway thanks for the thread.....and for jinxing my car. :wink :cheers

BTW.....I am right at 7,500 miles.
 
Tom,

The tune will be fine. You gauge problem was caused by low voltage to the gauge control module. You will be fine with a charged battery. In Tony's dad's case, I fear the tach and oil pressure gauge may need replacing.... but let's hope not.
 
Thanks Kendall. I was hoping it was that. I only had time for a 10 mile loop this morning so I am going to go out for a more vigourous ride tomorrow.

Hope you and your family have a great holiday season. :cheers

BTW.....I will be scheduling a trip down for fresh fluids and a once over before I do the Mojave mile in March. :biggrin
 
Tach in for repair AGAIN!!

Well, as I reported the first repair did not take. I now have my Tach at North Hollywood Speedometer for "Hopefully" a second chance:ack
I will let you know as soon as I hear:bang
 
BillyGT said:
Well, as I reported the first repair did not take. I now have my Tach at North Hollywood Speedometer for "Hopefully" a second chance:ack
I will let you know as soon as I hear:bang
Click to expand...

I deal with Kevin at North Hollywood Speedometer; have so for several years and it has always been a great experience.

Shadowman
 
My boost just stopped working.
That's guage two for me. Any my battery is fine.

Is there a non OEM look-a-like that does not fail after a couple years?
If I own this car 20 years I'll spend more on guages than I did on the car :wink
 
I'm still in a holding pattern on mine until somebody comes up with a reason why these guages are failing. Not going to throw new tach on for ridiculous price just to have it fail again. Temp guage is more of a concern. Have not had a chance to ask dealer about it yet. My guess is that many more people are going to have guage problems, though I surely don't wish it on anyone.

Rick
 
SuperB yes there is..http://www.britospeed.com/boostgauge.html
Michael
 
In another post I said that gauge problems were becomming prolific. That notion was scoffed at, however, this thread appears to validate that my point has merit. My car goes into the shop on Monday for a $1,000 fuel gauge. 3,000 miles and always keep on the Cooltech Tender.
 
BillyGT said:
Well, as I reported the first repair did not take. I now have my Tach at North Hollywood Speedometer for "Hopefully" a second chance:ack
I will let you know as soon as I hear:bang
Click to expand...

With all due respect to Dr. Frank, has the guage mfg'r/Autometer, or one of the repair entities, done a "post mortum" on the factory guage to ascertain what caused the inital failure e.g. low/no/or spike in voltage that might have lead to the failure? Could be charging system related??
 
IMO, there's no way it could be charging related. With the key in the "off" position, the internal electronics of the gauge module are just not in play. In fact, we just finished repairing a car where an owner's friend inadvertently installed a new batter backwards and proceeded to connect the pos and neg cables to the wrong posts. Big sparks!

The gauges were all dead and I feared the worst (gauge module and/or individual gauges), but after replacing one of the gauge module fuses (F2.8), all was well.

In fact, the GT took the whole "incident" in stride. A couple of fuses were blown and the alternator was killed. Once we replaced these items, the car is once again fine.
 
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nota4re said:
IMO, there's no way it could be charging related. With the key in the "off" position, the internal electronics of the gauge module are just not in play. In fact, we just finished repairing a car where an owner's friend inadvertently installed a new batter backwards and proceeded to connect the pos and neg cables to the wrong posts. Big sparks!

The gauges were all dead and I feared the worst (gauge module and/or individual gauges), but after replacing the one of the gauge module fuses (F2.8), all was well.

In fact, the GT took the whole "incident" in stride. A couple of fuses were blown and the alternator was killed. Once we replaced these items, the car is once again fine.
Click to expand...

Worth a shot, eliminates one obvious root cause, but begs to be explained why the variation vehicle-to-vehicle.
 
GT35065 said:
I'm still in a holding pattern on mine until somebody comes up with a reason why these guages are failing. Not going to throw new tach on for ridiculous price just to have it fail again. Temp guage is more of a concern. Have not had a chance to ask dealer about it yet. My guess is that many more people are going to have guage problems, though I surely don't wish it on anyone.

Rick
Click to expand...

Rick, We got a new battery and waiting to install it. Trying to find a time when it is not raining to drive it after installing for the "break in". We should have it in this weekend. It's a slow process when it has rained the past week and rocks still on the road. Will update.
 
RE; Prolific

I ran the gauge survey and got 30 repsonses; I also parsed every gauge thread and got 22 unique IDs that i PM'd, who voted.

I am not an actuary or electrical engineer; but a few things strike me

-30/4038 failures is very small

-75% of failures were using a non-OEM charger; 50% no charger at all

-the OEM charger runs at 500 mili-amps where as the Batt Tender runs at 750

One would need an eletrical engineer to review the wiring harness schematic to the gauge and the gauge internal components to decide if circuit is somehow unstable with certain variables (sometimes these are on web or buried in journals).

My uneducated take is a connection without constant current (usage) builds up coatings that hinder/amplify voltage regulation, and over time degrade sensitivity. Other culprits are static conductivity, feedback, and magnetism. In Vettes, for example low frequency magnetic fields around house gates /garage alarms were frying keyless entry systems.

Someone around here is qualified to look at this
 
Is that like the static electricity buildup the Cable internet guy tries to tell me I need to dissipate by unplugging for 2 minutes?

:banana
 
SuperB said:
Is that like the static electricity buildup the Cable internet guy tries to tell me I need to dissipate by unplugging for 2 minutes?

:banana
Click to expand...

Sounds like BS from the cable guy. Probably wants you to unplug so that the power supply can drain and the modem and or router get a hard reset when plugged back in.
 
Kayvan said:
RE; Prolific

I ran the gauge survey and got 30 repsonses; I also parsed every gauge thread and got 22 unique IDs that i PM'd, who voted.

I am not an actuary or electrical engineer; but a few things strike me

-30/4038 failures is very small

-75% of failures were using a non-OEM charger; 50% no charger at all

-the OEM charger runs at 500 mili-amps where as the Batt Tender runs at 750

One would need an eletrical engineer to review the wiring harness schematic to the gauge and the gauge internal components to decide if circuit is somehow unstable with certain variables (sometimes these are on web or buried in journals).

My uneducated take is a connection without constant current (usage) builds up coatings that hinder/amplify voltage regulation, and over time degrade sensitivity. Other culprits are static conductivity, feedback, and magnetism. In Vettes, for example low frequency magnetic fields around house gates /garage alarms were frying keyless entry systems.

Someone around here is qualified to look at this
Click to expand...

Interesting fact as shared however the Battery Tender as used by a large number of folks is not the culprit; I share this so that folks with them do not panic or start calling Kendall. The differences between these two trickle charger examples are many however; the specific one that you addressed which is the maximum output of the charger does not reflect that which is being passed through to the battery at any given moment in time; in fact as the battery becomes fully charged the pass through voltage is minimal at best.

Now for the benefit of all; the gauge control module and the gauges are completely out of the loop while the key is removed the battery is being charged.

Empirical data would be nice however this is what I have been told; for example the speedometer uses a cool little very inexpensive integrated circuit (IC) and on those that have been this IC has been fried.

The belief by several that have looked that the gauges are that they are incapable of large voltage/amperage swings and when such it experienced one or more fail. It is also my understanding that when you turn the key on the attempt to hand shake with all of the gauges occurs and if one does not get a proper voltage signal it may simply not come to life which is why often times folks share that one gauge did not work however upon restarting the gal it comes back on line.

Could it be that the way that the gauges were wired allows them to experience the extreme draw when the gals are brought to life; maybe? One consideration discussed is to place a capacitor, a filter, or ? at the gauges thus reducing the voltage sweep; meaning create a constant voltage signal to the gauges regardless of the gal be started, the blower motor being activated, etc.

Now I agree that based on your collected data that the number of failures seems small however when one considers the in service time of these gals, the miles traveled, the number of mixed gauge failures, and then reassess the data as collected I would say that the failure rate would be by most standards; extreme.

All the best

Shadowman
 
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Shadowman - every time I get that "electrical handshake", it reminds me that I am highly alergic to volts, watts and amphere's.
 
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