Date:         Sun, 23 May 2010 12:21:09 -0400
Reply-To:     David Beierl <dbeierl@ATTGLOBAL.NET>
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From:         David Beierl <dbeierl@ATTGLOBAL.NET>
Subject:      Re: Water tank level gauge on '91 Westfalia
Comments: To: Loren Busch <starwagen@GMAIL.COM>
In-Reply-To:  <AANLkTilsz72p7DXke_vqqKG17rpgwkZDbfUb9n3ONzJI@mail.gmail.c om>
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At 11:57 AM 5/23/2010, Loren Busch wrote:
>Welcome to the club.  My '90 has been telling me the water tank is half full
>(middle yellow LED) for a couple of years now no matter how full or empty
>the tank is.  Played around with the float and tried to see what was going
>on with the reed switches last time I cleaned out the tank, no clue on what
>has failed.  So I live with it, to many other nickel and dime projects to
>deal with.

Loren, we can solve or at least diagnose that without much
difficulty.  Short answer:  If you unplug the sender and the yellow
light stays, replace the left-hand LM324 with another from Radio
Shack and your worries will be over.  The easiest way to remove the
chip is to clip the leads with a small pair of dykes and then
desolder the holes individually.  No shame, even the pros do it this
way -- in fact there are special cutters made for the
purpose.  Dremel with cutoff disk would be another good way -- just
run it along the top of the leads where they flatten out to dive into
the epoxy covering.

Chip costs a couple bucks.  Soldering advice on request.

d