zacky6661
Full Access Member
Damon beat me too it. I read through the first page and I'm goin... Wrong... wrong... wrong... your ALL Wrong!
Buddy, all you needed to do when you were sitting at that light and your gauge started to shoot up, was rap your knuckles on the plastic over your instrument panel. I guarantee what you experienced was a sticking IVR. It would have dropped right back down to normal, and you'd be fine. The FIRST thing I did when I opened this thread was check your sig, and when I saw you had an 86' I knew it was the IVR before I even started reading it, I'm that sure that is what your problem is. Go to Ford and get a new Instrument Voltage Regulator. It attaches to the back of your cluster, and it is essentially a turn signal flasher that takes your 12 volts and applies it to the gauges with about a 50% duty cycle. Mine stick in the on position all the time, and like Damon said your fuel and oil will go up also, but the temp is the most sensitive and will be the one that makes you ignore the other two.
where can i find the IVR? i have these same problems on my 84, ill be drivin along then watch me magically gain 1/4 of a tank fuel and appear to start running hot so my assumption would be this.