'Check Gage' light, everything looks ok

JJanney

Registered User
Popped on last night randomly, I checked everything over and it all seemed fine to me. The water temp and oil seemed ok. Could it be from not reseting the VMM? Oh, and my fuel gauge is broken, but has never triggered the light before.

What's up?

Thanks!
 
Most times when the check guage light comes on is when you are very low on fuel. I'm not sure of the exact level, but I'm thinking it is less than 2 gallons. Try filling your car up to see if it turns it off.
 
If your gas guage is broke and on empty that could be the issue. The SC I bought had sat for almost a year and the gas guage was not working so that light was always on. Slowly my guage now will show half a tank when I fill it and then accurately register the last half of tank. Once the guage started coming off of empty the light went off.
 
When the light comes on for gas, it is less than two gallons. The light comes on 1/8 of the tank is left ~ 2 gallons. I just filled up yesterday afternoon, I should have had about 10 gallons left in the tank.

The light came on again today on the highway, but nothing was wrong. I'll fill the tank up again today.

Regarding the fuel gauge, it is broken and on full. It has not lighted up for the past four months when I owned the car and it was broken. Another thing, I ran out of gas one day and it never came on.
 
The oil pressure is a dummy guage. So long as it reads something, you have pressure. If it doesn't read anything that is when you need to pay close attention. Our oil guages simply tell us there is pressure, not how much.
 
All right, that's one thing down. I guess it is my gas guage. Weird. I'll try to tinker with it this weekend.

I figure that I filled the tank up too much and since it is broken, the gauge is reading too high. Or something like that.

Any ideas would help!
 
JJanney said:
All right, that's one thing down. I guess it is my gas guage. Weird. I'll try to tinker with it this weekend.

I figure that I filled the tank up too much and since it is broken, the gauge is reading too high. Or something like that.

Any ideas would help!

If your gauge is reading full all the time the the gauge has become diconnected from the sender unit somewhere between the 2. Check all wiring and connections first. If all that checks OK then the sender unit could be bad.
 
The last owner told me that when he installed the new fuel pump, he didn't put the sender unit in right (or something). That is why it reads full.
 
Well your right, if someone else has been in there monkeying around that very well could have happened......so on second thought I'de check there first. That was pretty cool the guy told you he done something and it did'nt work correctaly afterwards.
Most people would have just said it dont work and left it at that.
 
Check Gauge Light

Popped on last night randomly, I checked everything over and it all seemed fine to me. The water temp and oil seemed ok. Could it be from not reseting the VMM? Oh, and my fuel gauge is broken, but has never triggered the light before.

According to one of the manuals I was reading, if you have the VMM, the VMM light comes on between 1\4 & 1\8 tank. The check gauge light is supposed to be on at less than 2 gal. Mine works correctly in that respect. My question is: Does this light have any other function than fuel level? Ever since just before I had my exhaust done(O2 sensors @ same time), at first it would blip the light when it shifted (shift kit set to firm) and lately if I accelerate hard (3\4 to full throttle) the check gauge light comes on from 4K RPM till it shifts at redline. At first I thought it was just the fuel level sensor coming uncovered due to ~1\4 tank & fuel going to back of tank, but it does the same with a full tank.:confused: I'm stumped. Before anyone asks, it's definitely the red check gauge light and not the amber CE light. It's not throwing any codes I can find and feels really good now that it can breath. Any ideas?? Should I be worried or is someone just gonna tell me, "It's a Ford thing baby, yaaah". My biggest fear (especially after puting in a new engine ~20K ago) is that even though I babied it till I could get the exhaust done, due to a clogged cat and possible partial blockage as the boost gauge would peg at anything much over 1\2 throttle, some damage was done. I'm still at the "have to pay people to do the work" stage, as I still have much learning to do.
 
With all gauges looking ok, I too had the check gauge light popping on and off. After 2 months off guessing, it turned out to be a bad oil pressure sending unit. The seal in the sender was going bad and giving false readings. The gauge itself would sit about a 1/5 of the way up (close to the'n') One day the seal just gave out and started gushing oil over the front of the motor. Cheap easy fix and the gauge looked ike it read better too. Halfway up insted of lower. (I know its a dummy) Recently had the same thing happen again in my 90. I changed the oil because it needed it and the problem went away temporaraly (sp?). About 1000 miles later it came back. Change sensor...no problems in last 4k. Hope this helps. Mine would also throw the light mostly at highway speeds. Good luck.

Joe
 
After doing my motor mounts last year, the check gauges light was on. It turned out the wire from one of the sensors (coolant I believe) was cracked and came off the connection.

It's the sensor that is just to the right of the center of the engine in front by the vent tube for the cooling system. It's circled just below the vent tube in this picture. (the lower circle is the oil pressure sender)

tempsensors.jpg
 
...

mine also went on with my old setup, when i ran my own custom gauges for fuel pressure, coolant temp, oil pressure.. i didnt worry.. now i know it must of been the coolant temp one..
 
MercXr7-5speed said:
With all gauges looking ok, I too had the check gauge light popping on and off. After 2 months off guessing, it turned out to be a bad oil pressure sending unit. The seal in the sender was going bad and giving false readings. The gauge itself would sit about a 1/5 of the way up (close to the'n') One day the seal just gave out and started gushing oil over the front of the motor. Cheap easy fix and the gauge looked ike it read better too. Halfway up insted of lower. (I know its a dummy) Recently had the same thing happen again in my 90. I changed the oil because it needed it and the problem went away temporaraly (sp?). About 1000 miles later it came back. Change sensor...no problems in last 4k. Hope this helps. Mine would also throw the light mostly at highway speeds. Good luck.

Joe

My check gauges comes out too in my Cougar. It only comes on when the car is first started up though. The really weird thing about it though is that when I turn on and off the defroster it shuts the light off, and when the defroster is left on when the car is started it will remain on until it turn it off. Sometimes I have to turn the defroster off and on again many times before the light goes out. Also, the head lights dim for a sec right as I turn the defroster on and off. Maybe the light is coming on because of a bad altinator?

Even though the oil gauge is a dumby, mine reads at about the "N" also and I have questioned weather or not it is functioning properly before so maybe that could be the cause?

Thanks!
Shane
 
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