So the other day I decided to take my 914 out for a drive. About 20 mins. into the drive, the alternator light came on so I stopped and checked the belt and it was there. Started it back up and drove it home. On the way home, anytime I would press the brake pedal, the temp gauge and fuel gauge would drop to zero.


Drove for another 20 mins. until I got home. Turned it off, and when I turned the ignition back on, neither the oil or the generator light would come on, but the car would start right up. So I shut it off and when I got out of the car I noticed the right front turn signal, marker light and tailamp were on. So I disconnected the battery and that's where I am at. Anytime I hook the battery up, the right lights come on. The car starts but the oil and alt. light will not come on.


Any ideas of where to start looking? Any advice would be appreciated.

Thanks,
Patrick

my first appoach to funny dash lights and such is to clean the fuses and fuse holdera dn retension the fuse holder springs, repalce dirty fuses . this can often fix funny gremlins, do this first, fast and easy to clean the fuse box up, if probelm remains, then we need to go further.

Look for the fuse you kicked out getting in/out of the car. All right lamps make sure your turn signal switch is centered.

The turn signal lever is centered. All fuses are there and I spun them to see if things would come back to normal but no luck. I learned about the fuse kicking thanks to a local police officer stopping me for having no tailights when I first got the car.

Still acting up though...

Update, I got the turn signal lever centered. It was stuck and I removed the steering wheel and cleaned up the centering pin. Now there are no outer lights.

I have no oil or alt lights, the battery gauge and fuel gauge don't read but the car starts and runs fine.....I cleaned all the underdash fuses.

Any other ideas of where to check?

It is probably the power feed to the gauges. It comes from the fuse box (IIRC) fuse number 8. If that fuse is out, the wipers won't work, but neither will the gauges.

Do the wipers work?

Do you have a voltmeter? If not, buy one, you'll need it with your little toy car which has over 30 years of oxidation on all the electrical contacting surfaces.

Since you started out with your ALT light on, check the battery voltage before and after starting the car. Before should be about 12.5V and after running should be greater than 13V, probably around 14 or 14.5V. Let us know what you find.

Check the ground post on the inner fender near the fuse block. Remove and wire brush then reinstall.
Tom

Update:

I found the voltage was 12.4 before and after starting the car. So I swapped out the voltage regulator from my parts car onto it. Now I am getting 13.8 volts with the car running. I still get no alt/oil light coming on and the battery gauge in the center console always reads zero. The wipers are working.


But now the alternator light is backwards. When I fisrt start the car it's not on and I get 12.4 volts but when I rev it a little the light comes on and the fuel gauge goes up to its normal setting and I get 13.8 volts. Weird. I also tightened the bolt under the left tray area.

By the way, it's a 74 2.0 with dual carbs and the battery, clock and temp gauges in the center console. Any other ideas would be great.

I had the symptoms you describe at one time. If I recall it is fuse #9. Ofcourse it's not the fuse thats the problem. It's a short on one of the many things on that circuit. I diagnosed the problem by operating switches one by one until the fuse blew. In my case it turned out that signaling a left turn caused the fuse 9 to blow. Also measured a large current draw with my ammeter. This ultimately lead to the emergency flasher switch which I moved in order to replace the dash face material.

Yours will be something different. Maybe you worked on some part of the car recently. Brake pedal maybe? Whatever it is, you've got to find it soon. Your battery may be discharging, and you may have wiring that is getting hot. I once had to rewire the front half of my car when a minor short snowballed by melting all the wiring together gaining access to more fuses as it progressed. Huge mess. Good luck, these can be simple or huge puzzles.