Well I found this old farmer who had this rust free cream puff 59 K original mile 62 Galaxie 500 rag top in his barn and I bought it. The car runs great but theres 2 problems that I dont know how to fix. And I already check'd the fuses 1. The dash lights dont work 2. The fuel gauge doesnt work
check the taillight circuit. It's tied to the dash so you know when you have no taillights, he dash is dim. Jay
The tail lights are on the same circuit as the dash lights. It's a built in idiot gauge that tells you that you have no taillights. Try putting a fresh fuse in the circuit, if it pops right away you have a short to ground, if it doesn't put a test light in one of the taillight sockets and see if you have power. If you do, you need to find the busted ground wire. Good luck. Jay
on mine the problem was with the switch. they dash lights are on a dimmer(twist the headlight knob) i just tied the dash wire in with the taillights. i dont need dimmable dash lights. the fuel gauge is usually a faulty sending unit. or broken wire, but could e the gauge itself mines gm and older ,but most cars were set up the same for decades
Dash lights could be: A) All the dash light balbs are burnt out. They have had a lot of years to burn out one at a time. B) The brightness of the lights is controled by a reostat attached to the light switch or beside it. The reostat may be turned all the way down, or the reostat may be bad. Fuel gauge doesn't work could be: A) A bad ground on the tank. For the gauge to work, the electric goes to the gauge, then from the gauge has to p*** through the sending unit and to ground. If the ground doesnt work, the gauge won't work. If the ground is good (or repaired) and the gauge still doesn't work, disconnect the wire to the sending unit and connect it to ground. The gauge should either read full or empty. If it works at this point, the problem is in the sending unit inside the tank. If it still doesn't work, check to see if you have power at that wire, check it with a volt meter.Could have 12 volts or may have 5 or 6 volts. The power may be constant or may be intermittent. It there is no power there, check the power going into the gauge. Many fuel gauges have a voltage limiter that reduces the voltage going into the gauge. No power to the gauge could be the voltage reducer, if one is present. Gene
I could be wrong, but I think the whole gauge cluster grounds to the dash board. My falcon did the same thing with the fuel gauge and temp gauge. I took the cluster out, cleaned and tightened all contacts, it was good as new. Good luck, chasing down electrical gremlins is sometimes a royal pain in the *****.
I dont know if this was a daily driver or it has been sitting a bit. The earlier 60's Fords had a fuel gauge resistor on the back of the dash. I dont think 65 had one, but maybe. They have a copper or br*** fuel tank float that sometimes goes bad. If the contacts on the sender are dirty, it wont work either. Do the things mentioned above like grounding, etc, to isolate the dash gauge vs the sender. If all the gauge bulbs are good, and the switch works..you can check it with a volt meter and turn the switch.. then there might be other issues. Start with the cheapest first, which is your labor testing parts, before you start buying things.
I had no dash lights and no taillights on my '62 Galaxie and thought I had checked all of the fuses and wiring connections. Went back to re-check the fuses (on the back of the headlight switch) and found the culprit. The very top fuse, that I didn't see the first time, is for the taillights and dash lights. I could barely see it, and it was a real ***** to change. Let us know what you find out... Malcolm
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