Car Question

[Jenni]

If any of you read the "Mir crashed in my back yard" post, you know that I mentioned a 1983 Nissan Sentra. It has been sitting in the yard unused for about a year. A couple of weeks ago I decided to see if it still ran, which was questionable. After putting some gas in it and some starter fluid, it started right up. So, with some plywood and sheetmetal screws, it now has no holes in the floorboards, trunk, and various other places. All the lights work, and it is driveable. Now, here'e the weird part, and where my question comes in: when you put on the left turn signal, the left lights blink everywhere except on the dashboard-the right one blinks! Also, the gas guage appears to be going down instead of up when you fill it up. Now, a while back, the car had some "critters" in it, of the variety that like to chew on wiring. Is it possible that they have shorted something out somewhere, or something isn't grounded somewhere? If so, where to look?

[LawyerRon]

Jenni,
You're probably correct. Take out the screws that hold the dash in and pull out the dash. Same with the lower dash pieces if necessary. Look around in there for chewed up wires. Same thing under the hood. Trace the wiring up to the turnsignals and look there. Same thing inside the trunk. Just start tracing down wires from the turnsignal swithch and headlight switch.

[wedor]

The turn signal switch is in the steering column, the wiring runs down the column and under the dash. And rather than attempting to remove the entire dash just pull out the instrument cluster.

[Omletteboy]

With regards to your gas gauge going down, the gauge in the gas tank could be busted. My car had a similar problem and I replace the gauge in the gas tank. New one are quite pricey so I got a used one.

[glc]

If those are the only problems - I would just leave it alone and drive it - if you start tearing things apart on something that "used" you could cause more problems!

[lil Jimmie]

The bulb in the dash is more than likely out. As far as the sending unit in the fuel tank it may have a hole in the float or just not working. To check the gauge you will have to find the lead to the sending unit and ground it, usually a 12 volt test light will work when grounded the gauge should read full. If the gauge reads full when grounded then you know the sending unit is bad and they are not cheap.

[Jenni]

glc, you are probably right. I guess I should have said too that the left one in the dash blinks when the right signal is on. Actually, if you look at them at night, they both blink, just one, "the correct one", is very dim compared to the other. O well, down is left and up is right, no matter which light blinks on the dash. As for the fuel guage, I'm sure my dad knows how many miles it gets to a tankful. He drove it for a while, and every time he fills it up, he resets the little "tripometer", so a guage really isn't all that important I guess. I think it gets about 35 MPG, and it has a 13¼ (what a weird size, must be some conversion from metric...) gallon tank, so that would be roughly 455 miles. Man, that sounds great compared to the 22 MPG our Altima gets!