84 Caprice Voltage Guage Issues - Help!

I bought a voltage guage from a garage sale for my '84 caprice (along with some other guages). I wanted to know exactly whats going on under the hood while I'm driving, even thought the car runs beautifly. Anyway, the voltage guage didn't come with any installation instructions or diagrams. I was wondering if theres any particular place that the guage has to be wired to, or can I just hook it up to any power source. I want to get an accurate reading. Thanks!

You can wire it into any circuit you want, but most folks tap into a switched 12v.

Depends on what you wanna do. Switched means there's no drain when the car is off.

Okay, I hooked up the voltage guage to a wire thats live only when the ignition's on. Problem... when i turn the ignition on it stays at 8 volts, whether the cars started or not. I could rev it a little, but still no change. I know that theres no way that theres only 8 volts coming outta the car. Does this mean that the guage is shot?

Remove the gauge and hold it directly onto the battery terminals. What reading do you get? You better be getting a lot more than 8volts

What circuit did you wire this thing into?

I still got 8 volts when I hooked it directly up to the battery. There are only 1 terminals on the back of the guage... a positive and a negative.

Are you sure it's not an amperage gauge rather than a voltage?

I bought a small 3 gauge setup once and didn't realize the one was an amperage gauge and needed to be hooked up differently. I don't recall what's different about hooking one up now though.

Wow. I never thought of that. I hope it's an amp gauge, because if all he's reading is 8 "volts", nothing on the car should be working as 10.2 = dead

It's a voltage guage for sure, and everything in the car works great... lights, stereo, amp, horn, fan...everything. And the battery has never died on me yet. My best guess is that the guage is just crap. Like you said, anything 10.2 or below = dead, and everything seems normal.

Hmm.. I guess it's crap then. ;-)