Will Bad voltage regulator cause gauges to read HIGH?

[Canadian1968]

Ever since I got stuck in traffic last year on a 32 degree day and had to pull over cause the temp gauge just kept on going up.  I cant seem to get the gauge to read correctly again.   

I am just about 98% sure its the gauge now.  It used to always read fine ( around the 180-190 ) area.  But since the over heat day the gauge never seems to read how it did before.  I just put in a brand new sensor, getting the same results.  When the car is running,  I check the thermostat housing with a inferred thermometer and it never reads over 185 but the gauge is reading just above the 230 mark.

Will a bad voltage limiter on the circuit board cause the gauge to read high?

[nitrousn]

It can but all other gauges should also read high. One gauge acting up sounds like a problem with that alone. What are the oil and fuel gauges doing?

[doctor4766]

I found the ground wire had dropped off the voltage regulator in my car and all the gauges peaked out.
Soldered it back on and everything was fine.
Not sure if a bad regulator will do the same thing though.

[Canadian1968]

I never had faith my fuel gauge was reading correctly either. I always filled up when it hit 1/4.

Taking it out for the first time this year , the fuel gauge was reading just below the 1/4 mark,  just more than a needle width below.   Given a 19gal tank, which works out 72 liters.   I put in 15 liters which would be 3 liters short of 1/4 tank  ( 72/4 = 18 ).  That being said I should see the needle sit just below the 1/2 mark.  It ended up moving a needles width over the 1/4.  So in my opinion its reading a bit low.

Took the car for a drive , the temp gauge stayed steady around the 215ish mark.  When I got home pulled into the garage, left the car running and shot the inferred right at the thermostat housing, 180 bang on.

The oil gauge is not hooked up . And the Alt gauge works on its own circuit, and reads perfectly.

I think my best approach is it get a Solid state voltage limiter for the back of the cluster , and try and calibrate the gauges?

I know there is a ton of write ups how to do the gauges with resistors,  but during this COVID-19 mess , i don't really want to try and track down all the crap I need to do that.  I did read somewhere about using just plain old batterys in series to give you different voltages. At 1.5v per battery, 2 batteries would give me 3 volts which should make the gauge read just over half?  3 battery would be JUST under full .  Is the voltage method worth it ? Or does it really need to be calibrated with resistors ?