Aprilia fuel gauge

[davidwheeler]

Many years ago I replaced the multi core cable that runs from the sender in the tank at the back to the fuel gauge.  Unfortunately, I discover that the six volts that leave the sender have diminished to a mere 3.8 or so by the time they wend their weary way to the gauge through the thin wires, insufficient to make the filaments glow in the lamps.  However, Maplins stock white 4.2 volt solderable (if you are quick and delicate) LEDs for £1.35 each.  I have not fitted them yet but the bulb holder unplugs and looks like the attached photo.  Who would have thought that the ingenious gauge is a modified idiot's light display from Joe Lucas?!  A printed circuit, too, very forward looking for 1937.

[DavidLaver]

The challenge now is to find a picture of a dash with that component in its intended form.

David

[Scarpia]

I don't understand the question. If you want a picture of the various instrument panel designs per series, that's no problem, or is it something else you mean?

[davidwheeler]

Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa!!   I have mislead you all.  I have just taken apart my fuel gauge and found it entirely different from the picture I have published above.  That component has been sitting in my Aprilia spares box for nearly 40 years and I assumed it was from the fuel gauge.  I suppose it is just possible that it is from a later series car but I doubt it.  It came originally from John Maltby with the car so its origins are lost in the mists of time. What is more, careful attention to connections and in particular to earths have resulted in sufficient volts to light the original bulbs so the good news is that my fuel gauge works.  My sole relief is that nobody among the fifty or so folk who have read the thread seems to have noticed.

When I was 9 or so my headmaster taught the class the National Anthem of Siam (as it was then).  Although some of us twigged, we still had to sing it.  I sing it now...

"O wata na Siam"

[ben]

            I wouldnt beat yourself up too much over it. Us chaps over a certain age are allowed an occasional short circuit. I myself once mistakenly advised that by lying on ones back beneath a sliding pillar one could see ones own balls.

[sparehead3]

THAT SHOULD BE IN THE WARBY LOUNGE BEN !!!!!!!!