Interesting, safari/auberin gauge/wiring/queerness

[Gren]

Just something I thought I'd note with you guys.
I recently purchased and installed an auber egt gauge- all fine and dandy there.
Then my gauge cluster went on the fritz resulting in a fried temp gauge so rather than trying to polish a turd I took most people's advice and added an aftermarket gauge- not wanting to overspend my wife's hard earn cash and go into stop credit with her I simply picked up the appropriate vdo sender and reconfigured the gauge to suit. The auber won't read anything below 50c when using the vdo sender and will show "EEEE" until it reaches said temp.
Took the truck for a blat and got it warmed up.
Still reading EEEE..... Hmm stop truck but leave key in on position, hello 65 degrees! Hmmm
Start truck once again EEEE this goes on for a while until I notice that while the glow light is on it will show EEEE. Then read fine until the truck is actually running.
Now remember I hadn't changed the power feed or earth wires from when the gauge was in EGT mode.
Hearing that glow plug relay clicking got me to thinking something is going on there so I simply moved the earth from under the dash to the intake manifold and hey hey problem solved.

Now who here has an explanation for this?
Food for thought

[kbushnz]

Just something I thought I'd note with you guys.
I recently purchased and installed an auber egt gauge- all fine and dandy there.
Then my gauge cluster went on the fritz resulting in a fried temp gauge so rather than trying to polish a turd I took most people's advice and added an aftermarket gauge- not wanting to overspend my wife's hard earn cash and go into stop credit with her I simply picked up the appropriate vdo sender and reconfigured the gauge to suit. The auber won't read anything below 50c when using the vdo sender and will show "EEEE" until it etches said temp.
Took the truck for a blat and got it warmed up.
Still reading EEEE..... Hmm stop truck but leave key in on position, hello 65 degrees! Hmmm
Start truck once again EEEE this goes on for a while until I notice that while the glow light is on it will show EEEE. Then read fine until the truck is actually running.
Now remember I hadn't changed the power feed or earth wires from when the gauge was in EGT mode.
Hearing that glow plug relay clicking got me to thinking something is going on there so I simply moved the earth from under the dash to the intake manifold and hey hey problem solved.

Now who here has an explanation for this?
Food for thought

Looks like you have a bad earth between you engine block and the body / chassis...Check the wires.. should be some nice fat ones...Not sure where the nissans ones are.

[Gren]

Hmm yeah would account for the cluster failures of late too wouldn't it.
Time to add an earth cable from under the dash to the engine.

[coxsy]

when the guys getting my new engine to run found earth problems with the engine huge earth cables resulted on it

[Heath]

I always upgrade the earth leads where I can (especially from engine to chassis and then to batt).