HELP!!! Goofy gauges

[RECHRGD]

OK, here's some history...........
Two years ago I installed a new Year One dash wiring harness.  At that time I purchased a new ignition timer relay, just because.  All was good.  Last year I had the gauge cluster restored and a new electronic IVR installed.  All was good.  A week or so ago, after a couple of hours of cruising I was stuck in traffic and noticed the heat getting up to over 230*.  This is not normal for my car on a 55* day.  When I broke loose of the traffic and was heading down the highway to the cars storage unit, the heat did not go down. as would usually be the case.  When driving into the storage unit area I noticed that the fuel gauge was saying that I had more fuel than when I left two hours previously and that my oil pressure gauge was pegged at idle.  When I opened the hood, it was apparent that the engine was not over heated at all.  I started the car again and all the gauges went back to reading normal.  A couple of days later I took the car back to the guy that did the gauge rebuild and had him put a new (and improved) IVR in the dash.  When he was reaching up under the dash to change it out he got burned by the ignition relay timer.  It was almost red hot and was melting the plastic socket it was plugged into, along with an adjacent wire.  We unplugged it and I decided that the timer was something that I could live without.  So now, with the timer out of the circuitry and my new upgraded electronic IVR, all was good again.  Today looked to be the last shot at good weather before putting the car away for the season.  We took about a two hour cruise and did some errands.  When heading out for some more cruising, I noticed that all my gauges were reading low.  We were close to the storage area, so pulled into check things out.  In the trunk I had a new electronic voltage regulator from Year One that I had not yet installed, so in it went.  I started the car and all gauges were reading properly.  I told my better half that it must have been a bad voltage regulator and we continued our cruise.  By the time I got out of the storage area, the gauges were reading low again.  I went around the block and went to put the beast away.  When idling I turned on the electric cooling fan and the amp gauge showed a charging condition as would be normal.  I shut off the car and started it back up within 30 seconds.  Upon the start up all gauges went back to normal readings.  WTH is going on here.  I'll be bringing the car home in a few days for the winter and will start tracing things out.  Any ideas on where to start looking???  BTW, the battery is on it's 4th year but seems plenty strong.   Bob

[charger Downunder]

i bought a new voltage regulater for my gauges and it was bad i put the old one back in.Make sure your gauge cluster is earthed properly.

[acelondon]

Bad Regulator Ground.




if they lose their ground, they shoot up to about 16 volts. not a good thing, but an easy fix. fix it soon, so it dosent burn anything out.

[Just 6T9 CHGR]

Same thing happened to my gauges when I installled my own "home made" solid state gauge regulator.  I followed the instructions from an old Mopar Action tech article.  It worked great for a few days then I started experiancing the same low gauge readings as you.....tossed out my home made one & put back in the old school regulator....gauges read normal again

[Ghoste]

Any clues as to why that might have happened like that Chris?

[Just 6T9 CHGR]

Who knows?  Maybe one of the cheapie Radio Shack diodes/resistors I used started to fail? Maybe the old "if it aint broke, dont fix it" addage applies?