Stepper motor question

[Tahoe442]

Has anybody replaced the stepper motor on our obs gauge cluster for the fuel gauge? I am swapping a denali cluster into mine, awaiting some led bulbs i just ordered and would like to order a stepper motor for it. Do nbs stepper motors work in our cluster or is there a good solution out there? Thanks

 

[chaingun427]

as far as i know there isn't a stepper motor for this application, i've got the infamous wiggling fuel gauge myself and the dampening oil didn't work for me. Next i'm going to try replacing the grounds on both the tank and the sending unit, if that doesn't fix it next is replacing the sending unit itself which can be found on ebay, and last but not least if none of that works i'll be directly wiring the sending unit directly into the gauge as i've tested that and it doesn't wiggle at all.
I've done some extensive reading on the subject and it seems to be worse on the newer models where the signal is sent through the ecm as it sends a digital signal to an analog gauge.

 

[Tahoe442]

Chaingun, can you give me a writeup on how to wire it directly to the sending unit? I would be very interested in doing this modification

 

[chaingun427]

last time i needed to reset my needle i powered the gauge out of the truck, and took a sending unit, stripped the wires off, grounded one end and connected the other to the gauge, smooth movement and no jitters

 

[SunlitComet]

Would not advise that. It is used by the pcm in conjunction with the evap system.

 

[chaingun427]

But by removing the signal to the gauge and splitting off the signal to the pcm and the gauge could work?

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I537 using Tapatalk

 

[SunlitComet]

NONONONONONONONONONONON!!!!! the pcm is already sending 5 volts into the tank and a second wire reads the feed back. It is loop the non pcm type send system down the sender then to ground. they are two different measuring methods. Not to mention two different voltages and combined they will effect the other in addition to changing the voltage and current going in to the tank. Maybe the current is not enough to be a big deal but I would not do it when the sensor circuits are exposed to fuel. Stick withe design and fix if needed.

 

[chaingun427]

Understood, didn't realize the fuel gauge didn't run on just potential resistance. This probably wouldn't do much to help anyways, from what i understand the non pcm types still had the issue with the gauges, just not as bad as the PCM models.

 

[SunlitComet]

In the non pcm types the thing that would really make it vibrate is AC power leakage out of the alternator because of rectifier diode issues.

 

[chaingun427]

aside from grounding issues on the tank and sending unit, what causes it on the pcm models? i'm not ready to pull the tank yet for a new sending unit but i may be soon as it's quite annoying