has anyone made a low gas light for their fiero? i found a schematic on fiero sails for a low fuel light. it sounds very useful in this day in age.

here is the link to it
http://www.westol.com/~beaurega/gas.htm

making this would be really cool.

i just found this on google. its from some g-body olds site. i think this may be the easier way of doing this for those of you who do not have any mad electronics skrills.

If you look, there is a "Low Fuel" indicator in the dash already. It was never an option from the factory, but you can make your Low Fuel light work. I did with mine. Here's what you'll need to hook one up to your Rallye Gauge cluster:

* GM Part #6432974, Low Fuel circuit board from a Buick Rivera. About $35 from GM, cheaper from the junkyard, but sorry, I don't know what year of Buick it is. Mid 80's I'd guess. This is about a 1.5" square circuit board with a light socket on it.
* Two 6" small gauge wires (18 or 20 gauge should be plenty) with small ring terminals crimped on the ends.
* A soldering Iron
* And your gauge cluster, removed from the car. Click here if you need to know how to remove yours.

Looking down on the bulb contained in the circuit board assembly, you'll see three terminals. One at 12:00, one at 6:00 and one at about 9:00.12:00 goes to +12v ignition switched. 6:00 goes to ground. 9:00 goes to the fuel sending unit. The hole in the back of the rallye gauge cluster already has the +12v supplied (the bottom of the socket), but the other end goes to a vacant pin. Follow the 6:00 and 9:00 terminals through to the bottom of the circuit board and note where they're soldered on. Solder your two 6" wires to these two points (one each).

Now, plug it into the open socket on the back of the gauge cluster, making sure the terminal that was at 12:00 looking down on the circuit board goes to the bottom of the socket. Now look at the terminals onthe lower right of the back of the gauge cluster. From the bottom right they're numbered starting at 1 and going around clockwise. Pin 2 is ground and pin 3 is the fuel sending unit. Find pin 2 and follow the circuit trace until you come to a nut. Attach the ring terminal you soldered to the 6:00 lead to this nut. Find pin 3 and follow the trace until you come to a nut. Attach the ring terminal you soldered to the 9:00 lead to this nut.

Reinstall the rallye pack and you're set to go! My light goes on when the needle is about mid-way in the orange part. The good part about this is that you're not doing any modifications to the gauge cluster itself. Pop the circuit board out of the socket and unscrew the two terminals and it's as good as new, and you're free to move it to another car.

here is a picture of that board installed on a old cluster.


i am having no luck finding any others online. my A.D.D. is flaring up and i just thought of a way to make a really simple low fuel light. this will only work if your gas guage is operating correctly.

we already know there is 90 ohms of resistance at the fuel gage sender when its full and 0 ohms when empty. all needs to be done is to wire up a led with the proper resistance for a 12v circuit. have the anode receive the + 12v signal. for the cathode, use a resistor with the proper resistance for the led to use 12v. then in line with the resistance on the cathode, use........ah crap, i just realized that the circuit i am starting to decribe would not work since the resistance drops as fuel goes down. and with the circuit i was just describing, it would make the led brighter. it needs to be the opposite of that. that complicates the circuit, so anyone who is not good with building circuits could not do this. i have a feeling that the board that can be grabbed from a rivera is just a voltage reversing circuit. ya, i cant remember the actual name for a circuit like that.

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3500 LX9 from 06 Malibu, WOT-TECH.com 1280 grind stage 3 cam, LS6 valve springs, 1227730 ECM conversion, Darrel Morse solid aluminum cradle mounts, Truleo headers modified to fit the 3500, 36# inectors, 70mm 4.3 throttle body adapted to 3500 intake, ported heads, upper and lower intakes, lightly polished, WOT-TECH crank trigger wheel, CenterForce dual friction clutch, Flowtech Afterburner muffler, 2.5" piping, cat deleted, EGR deleted, SinisterPerformance tuning, C6 Corvette exhaust tips. projected to be 35 MPG with a guesstimate of 250 hp to the wheels

here is another one i just came across from searching the rivera part number. this one is some good info. i think that the circuit described that didnt work for him will work for the fiero. from what i understand in the schematic for the fiero, the voltage goes UP as the fuel level goes down. in the circuit described, its stated that the voltage goes DOWN as fuel goes down. so that circuit may work.

http://members.shaw.ca/greg...%20fuel%20Light3.htm

ill add more as i find them

At some point I have to go in to the dash on my other Gt and fix the temp gauge. This would be a nice add-on at the time.

You have a part number for the part. I thought I saw a site that would tell you what year/models used that part. I will poke around. I assume it would be found behind the gauge cluster on a Riviera?

Any ideas what it would take to turn on at a 1/4 tank? Either way this is a great idea.

Steve

This made me think of this thread... not really related, but still a cool idea.

https://www.fiero.nl/forum/A...0710-1-036100-3.html

https://www.fiero.nl/forum/A...18-2-059238.html#p22

If I were to build this circuit, I would add some low-pass filtering and hysteresis to eliminate flicker, but that's just me. jstricker said that he actually prefers the flicker because it attracts his attention.

[This message has been edited by Marvin McInnis (edited 07-03-2008).]

yea, most people are so simple that a flickering brightly colored light will get their attention. guess some crackheads and other tweekers are attracted to cop cars? haha, thats where they will end up anyways. in a cop car.

that may sound insulting, but i do not mean fofr it to be in anyway. im just saying mankind is easily attraced and distracted by blinking lights

ooo......my flickering hard drive light........


(yes, i have A.D.H........its that blinking light again!

[This message has been edited by americasfuture2k (edited 07-05-2008).]

i got some great and useful info from the 12volt.com forum on this subject. here ya go

[QUOTE=i am an idiot] [P][/P]
[P]The 10K potentiometer will allow you to adjust the point that the light comes on. The capacitor is a 10 microfarad capacitor. It's purpose is to keep the light from coming on when you turn and the level goes low for a second. You can up the cap if it gives you too many falses while turning or stopping. The cap needs to be at least 16 volts. When I say up the cap, try a 22 mic or a 33 microfarad.[/P][/QUOTE]

I think you will find that the polarity of that circuit is backwards for a fuel sender in a GM car. In fact, that circuit in general appears to be inferior to the Beaurega circuit posted earlier.

[This message has been edited by Marvin McInnis (edited 07-05-2008).]

you know, your right. i didnt even study that diagram since i didnt have much time to deal with the results i recieved from my post on the12volt.com forum.

"If" you have OBD2 - try here for an all in one: http://www.scangauge.com/

im wanting to get that for any of my obd II cars i will have in the future. and for my aveo currently. anyone with a obd 2 computer can benifit from this one.

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1987 Fiero GT built by my brother, merlot566jka, 3500 LX9 from 06 Malibu, WOT-TECH.com 1280 grind stage 3 cam, LS6 valve springs, 1227730 ECM conversion, Darrel Morse solid aluminum cradle mounts, Truleo headers modified to fit the 3500, 36# inectors, 70mm 4.3 throttle body adapted to 3500 intake, ported heads, upper and lower intakes, lightly polished, tcemotorsports.com crank trigger wheel, CenterForce dual friction clutch, Flowtech Afterburner muffler, 2.5" piping, cat deleted, EGR deleted, SinisterPerformance tuning, C6 Corvette exhaust tips. projected to be 35 MPG with a guesstimate of 250 hp to the wheels

I think I might try this.... I already altered my SES light so it says "Check Wallet"

So what's the verdict on the "1/4 tank light" question? I did not see an answer. On my 88, I would only need 1/8 a tank (gauge is flawless), but on another Fiero, 1/8 of a tank on the gauge is empty in the tank.

Myke

i need to sit down with some of my electronic tech buddies and see what we can come up for this. and have it to be adjustable to different points of low fuel. 1/8th and 1/4 tank sound perfect to me. or even between 1/8th and 1/4. only problem with that is it will hafta rely on the signal coming from the level sender. and if yours is off, its going to jack the whole think up. so the sender would hafta be working correctly.

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1987 Fiero GT built by my brother, merlot566jka, 3500 LX9 from 06 Malibu, WOT-TECH.com 1280 grind stage 3 cam, LS6 valve springs, 1227730 ECM conversion, Darrel Morse solid aluminum cradle mounts, Truleo headers modified to fit the 3500, 36# inectors, 70mm 4.3 throttle body adapted to 3500 intake, ported heads, upper and lower intakes, lightly polished, tcemotorsports.com crank trigger wheel, CenterForce dual friction clutch, Flowtech Afterburner muffler, 2.5" piping, cat deleted, EGR deleted, SinisterPerformance tuning, C6 Corvette exhaust tips. projected to be 35 MPG with a guesstimate of 250 hp to the wheels

This is understandable. I have just done a quick search, and could not find a post on reseting the float in the tank. Has anyone successfully adjusted the float? The warning is a great idea... if your car can actually tell how much fuel is in the tank.

Myke

people here can successfully change engines and write incredible write-ups yet NO ONE can successfully tell us how this can be done! this to me, is way more important than some of the things we discuss on this forum. let's try to put our minds together boys!

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1986 GT Fiero Owner & Enthusiast
For Fiero updates, visit my site and don't forget to click on the ads!
http://educatorstop15.we.bs/fieropage.htm

quote Originally posted by Marvin McInnis: I think you will find that the polarity of that circuit is backwards for a fuel sender in a GM car. In fact, that circuit in general appears to be inferior to the Beaurega circuit posted earlier.

Simply flip the inputs. it's a simply 741 op amp.

My Lancia Beta Coupe had a low gas light at the E area of the gas gage, a hot light in the high temp area of the temp gage, plus a

"Brake Pad" warning light.
The metal backing plate for the pad had a hole thru one of the "ears". In this hole fit a plastic covered metal pin with a wire attached. When the pad got thin, the plastic covering would rub the rotor. Eventually this wore away allowing the pin to contact the rotor, grounding the wire. This completed the circuit & the warning light would flicker, telling me time for new pads.

quote Originally posted by 30+mpg: My Lancia Beta Coupe had a low gas light at the E area of the gas gage, a hot light in the high temp area of the temp gage, plus a "Brake Pad" warning light. The metal backing plate for the pad had a hole thru one of the "ears". In this hole fit a plastic covered metal pin with a wire attached. When the pad got thin, the plastic covering would rub the rotor. Eventually this wore away allowing the pin to contact the rotor, grounding the wire. This completed the circuit & the warning light would flicker, telling me time for new pads.

ive seen that on a cedes when i was at the auto hobby shop on base.

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1987 Fiero GT built by my brother, merlot566jka, 3500 LX9 from 06 Malibu, WOT-TECH.com 1280 grind stage 3 cam, LS6 valve springs, 1227730 ECM conversion, Darrel Morse solid aluminum cradle mounts, Truleo headers modified to fit the 3500, 36# inectors, 70mm 4.3 throttle body adapted to 3500 intake, ported heads, upper and lower intakes, lightly polished, tcemotorsports.com crank trigger wheel, CenterForce dual friction clutch, Flowtech Afterburner muffler, 2.5" piping, cat deleted, EGR deleted, SinisterPerformance tuning, C6 Corvette exhaust tips. projected to be 35 MPG with a guesstimate of 250 hp to the wheels

quote chrismclubm:... yet NO ONE can successfully tell us how this can be done! this to me, is way more important than some of the things ...

Really? One should practice looking at the gauges, gas included, while driving.

BTW I owned a car for 22 years w/ the gas gage light. It was more of a novelty than a warning light. I already knew my fuel tank was low by looking at the gage before the light was triggered.

[This message has been edited by 30+mpg (edited 07-16-2008).]

i know there has to be some electronics engineers with fieros in here. timgray, i know nothing about op amps. but i had a feeling it was something simple like that.

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1987 Fiero GT built by my brother, merlot566jka, 3500 LX9 from 06 Malibu, WOT-TECH.com 1280 grind stage 3 cam, LS6 valve springs, 1227730 ECM conversion, Darrel Morse solid aluminum cradle mounts, Truleo headers modified to fit the 3500, 36# inectors, 70mm 4.3 throttle body adapted to 3500 intake, ported heads, upper and lower intakes, lightly polished, tcemotorsports.com crank trigger wheel, CenterForce dual friction clutch, Flowtech Afterburner muffler, 2.5" piping, cat deleted, EGR deleted, SinisterPerformance tuning, C6 Corvette exhaust tips. projected to be 35 MPG with a guesstimate of 250 hp to the wheels

quote Originally posted by Myke: This is understandable. I have just done a quick search, and could not find a post on reseting the float in the tank. Has anyone successfully adjusted the float? The warning is a great idea... if your car can actually tell how much fuel is in the tank. Myke

http://www.fieropride.com/tech/gas_guage.htm

[This message has been edited by spark1 (edited 07-16-2008).]

One can hassle with dropping the tank & messing with the sending unit to zero (E) the gauge, but it is much easier & quicker to reset the needle. I have reset my needle. Do a search.

[This message has been edited by 30+mpg (edited 07-16-2008).]

Interesting. I know the float is the issue (Because I know the moron who worked on it) so I didn't think about searching for "Level sending unit." I forgot about Xanth's thread.

Thank you!!
Myke

quote Originally posted by 30+mpg: Really? One should practice looking at the gauges, gas included, while driving. BTW I owned a car for 22 years w/ the gas gage light. It was more of a novelty than a warning light. I already knew my fuel tank was low by looking at the gage before the light was triggered.

I do the exact same... and I know exactly when I need fuel, no questions asked... but at the same time, it would be nice to have one of these go off when there is 1/8 gas left. When the light goes off in newer cars today, it is an indication that the car will last 80 km's more before totally empty.

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1986 GT Fiero Owner & Enthusiast
For Fiero updates, visit my site and don't forget to click on the ads!
http://educatorstop15.we.bs/fieropage.htm

bumping to add to favorites

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1987 Fiero GT built by my brother, merlot566jka, 3500 LX9 from 06 Malibu, WOT-TECH.com 1280 grind stage 3 cam, LS6 valve springs, 1227730 ECM conversion, Darrel Morse solid aluminum cradle mounts, Truleo headers modified to fit the 3500, 36# inectors, 70mm 4.3 throttle body adapted to 3500 intake, ported heads, upper and lower intakes, lightly polished, tcemotorsports.com crank trigger wheel, CenterForce dual friction clutch, Flowtech Afterburner muffler, 2.5" piping, cat deleted, EGR deleted, SinisterPerformance tuning, C6 Corvette exhaust tips. projected to be 35 MPG with a guesstimate of 250 hp to the wheels

im probably adding one of these...
its totaly independant stock system and pretty much fool proof (crosses fingers)

http://www.alcohol-injectio...float-switch-71.html


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87 Fiero GT 5sp with Vortec L35 4300 Turbocharged V6
Bully Stage 2 clutch
Syclone intake manifold and engine management with Moates adapter and chip burner
Air/water intercooler and Devil's Own progressive water/alky injection
50lb injectors, 3 bar map sensor, Walboro fuel pump and Jabasco Intercooler pump
LM1 wideband on custom manifolds and 3" stainless exhaust system
T31/T04B H3 turbo and a S10 caliper conversion.
Murphy's Constant Matter will be damaged in direct proportion to its value
Murphy's Law of Thermodynamics Things get worse under pressure.
Arthur C. Clarke "Any significantly advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic"

[This message has been edited by vortecfiero (edited 07-19-2008).]

um, I hope you are not planning on putting that in your gas tank are you???? drilling a hole in the tank near the bottom for a switch is insane. The seals may not be gasoline rated. Plus ther is the whole drilling the hole in the tank thing, fumes, spark, boom... plys you have compormised the safety of the tank with a plastic fitting.
Don't do it.

eh, that post was july last year. so its a tad too late to tell him this. hes still posting, so hes still alive

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First LX9 Fiero GT, 1987
If you can't fix it with a hammer, you've got an electrical problem
Fiero's are people too. We pay just as much attention to them, if not more than our loved ones
My Fiero Fuel Economy
Videos of My GT
Google Videos of My GT
MPG Display for OBD I

I have a circuit I was thinking about building for a light but never had. Didn't think there would be much interest in it.

After several request I finally found most of it after digging in my file cab. Was missing some but got most of it together.
Been some time since I built it so. Pictures where kind of old.



With the jumpers you can set the output driver to work either way depending on how the fuel sender input works.
IE if it increases or decreases for low fuel. A-B or A-C on both sets. A-C's would be for the Fiero.
The output provides a grounded control for a light, LED, buzzer, whatever that is connected to 12V.


Also have the above as a pdf.

[This message has been edited by Dodgerunner (edited 04-17-2010).]

i think there is now. share share!

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First LX9 Fiero GT, 1987
If you can't fix it with a hammer, you've got an electrical problem
Fiero's are people too. We pay just as much attention to them, if not more than our loved ones
My Fiero Fuel Economy
Videos of My GT
Google Videos of My GT
MPG Display for OBD I

dodge, c'mon man. share it!

found this today. thought i would add it here in case the web page goes bye bye. looks like one that will...

http://users.telenet.be/mia...ish/misc/lowfuel.htm

quote Low Fuel Light Written and conceived by Jeff Anderson Please note the following warning: "In case of gross construction error it is possible to blow out the fuel tank's sending unit real quick if the tank is full, and less so if the tank is at the 1/8 tank indicated level that's needed for setting the turn-on threshold. Other gross errors could be more likely protected by fuses in the car." Five years ago I designed and added a low-fuel warning light to my 1991 Miata. I find that the warning light is useful, in addition to the analog gauge. I never have to worry about my fuel level until the light comes on. But then perhaps I just like warning lights that are helpful, e.g., the brake lights on the car in front of me when they put on their brakes. I could stay attentive to the closing distance just as I could stay attentive to a reduced fuel gauge level. Both of these warning lights clearly notifies me of when to be particularly alert to the situation at hand. The circuit I designed, and use, is shown below: (Editors note - the RED line doesn't connect the 3.3Kohm resistor or the small PNP transistor to the 470k or 10k resistors, it goes OVER that connection!) D1, D2 and D3 are diodes. Most any generic Silicon type will do just fine, i.e. 1N4001, or similar. After dropping the steering wheel, I took the whole gauge shroud off and apart. Then I scraped off the black paint covering one of the unused warning light openings and inserted a transparency of a gas pump image with a red background color. Thus, when my fuel is low, I see a picture of a gas pump and a red light in a formerly unused warning light circle. The printed circuit board behind the unused warning light openings are designed to accept a light socket. I bought the warning dash lamp (the brighter type) and socket from a Miata dealer. If I recall correctly, the +12V connection for the lamp was available, designed into the circuit board and the +12V connection was made simply by inserting the lamp socket into the circuit board. In the first few circuits I tried the car's unstable voltage regulation caused the circuits to perform somewhat in unison with the speed of the engine and the state of the car's battery. Regulating the car's variable voltage to the gauge and lamp circuit resulted in a full tank of gas not showing full on the gauge. The circuit shown above solves that problem because it is a four leg bridge circuit. Leg 1A is the gauge and leg 1B is D1 + D2 + 1.5K resistor. Leg 2A is the fuel level sending unit and leg 2B is the adjustable 2K resistor. D1 and D2 compensate for the two transistor's, and D3's, curves near their cut-off threshold and results in an extremely stable bridge balance that is independent of supply voltage variance. D3 assures high temperature cut-off. The 470K resistor provides a one or two gallon hysteresis, i.e., once the lamp turns on, it tends to stay on, and once it's off, it tends to stay off. This stabilizes the circuit so that splashing fuel in the tank won't cause the light to flash with each splash. The functional operation of this circuit is quite satisfactory. However, it could be improved by adding a timed delay circuit so that the warning lamp will not light until it receives a signal for about one solid minute. Now, upon a hard turn, or fast acceleration, the warning lamp tends to flash if the fuel is a little below a half tank. home

it will need to be tweaked to work for us of course.

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First LX9 Fiero GT, 1987 | My Fiero Fuel Economy | MPG Display for OBD I
Youtube Videos of My GT | modernize your fiero with technology!
If you can't fix it with a hammer, you've got an electrical problem
Fiero's are people too. We pay just as much attention to them, if not more than our loved ones
screw paying those bastards. im not going to become rich by paying for things.....

Check out this thread.

https://www.fiero.nl/forum/Forum2/HTML/079793.html

Look at my posts in the thread.
I did it last year and it works fine. It will flash a little below a quarter tank but I find this to be a great reminder to get some gas soon.

i posted a lot in that thread

found a car list for sources of the low fuel light.

quote CorvetteActionCenter Low Fuel Light This part will work: GM Part #6432974 (discontinued) In junkyards, search for: 1986 Olds 88s, 1980-1985 Rivieras, 1985-1990 Park Avenues, and 1986-1989 LeSabres. w/o digital gauges. You have to hook the wires to the fuel gauge posts--very easy.

Very cool! I want to add this so I can send the line to my CarPC. This way, when the fuel gets low, it will say something like "Attention, Low Fuel" and be able to navigate to a close gas station automatically.