Re: 23 series battery gauge problem

Posted by HH56 On 2014/9/22 11:29:55

If the needle was moving a fair amount to the discharge side it sounds as if a short is causing a circuit breaker to energize and as it cools, close again repeating the cycle. Typically all Packard CBs work in that fashion until the short is cleared or the breaker finally fails. There should be one and possibly two small rectangular boxes with two stud terminals mounted to the back of instrument cluster and another on the headlight switch. If you were moving things around, even if you were careful there is a good possibility something has shorted. If no switches were on chances are the problem is in the courtesy light or body feed circuit since that is active all the time. In the old wiring there have been instances where insulation shrank or cracked allowing the center conductor to touch the metal shell of lamp sockets or shorting under cable clamps when the wire was bent and insulation broke off.

If the needle was only moving a tiny bit then depending on how the turn signal feed was wired to the ign sw or voltage feed, it is possible that circuit is active even if ign switch is off.

On the non working signal lamp, so many intermittent or non working problems with turn signals can be traced to a poor ground. It might be worthwhile to remove the lamp assy, clean off a spot and either ensure nothing but pristine metal is present on the mounting stud/screw areas or possibly even run a small jumper wire to ground. The socket should also be examined. If the fiber center has gotten wet over the years and deformed, it is possible it can depress or bulge out resulting in a bad connection to one of the bulb contacts.

There is also a slim possibility the socket has worn or is large enough to allow the wrong bulb to be installed or one to be inserted incorrectly. I would check the bulb/socket carefully to ensure that when the bulb is inserted and turned to lock, both pins are actually in their slots and the contact buttons line up with the wires. There have been some instances where sockets were worn or new bulbs had the pins smaller or offset slightly from what the old requirements were that things did not line up.

On the horn, a couple of possibilities. There should be a direct feed from the Bat connection on solenoid so verify you have the voltage at B at the relay. If voltage present then start by checking the horn ring and wiring. You can check by touching a jumper between S on the relay and ground. If it blows then concentrate on the wire from relay up thru center of steering shaft and ring contacts. If the horn doesn't blow, check the relay by touching a decent sized jumper from B to H and see if the horn blows. If they don't sound then wire, horns or ground is suspect.