Lotus Europa Community

Yeah, it appears that your stabilizers are toast but it's curious that your new one is since I believe all the new ones are solid-state which should be much more reliable than the old ones (I believe they were electro-mechanical but I think the articles I posted and mentioned explain that pretty well). Anyway, your new one is clearly busted and you should send it back or just try again with another.

There is an article on building your own if you want to go that route (http://lotus-europa.com/manuals/misc/electrical/vregulator.gif). I think the instructions in that article were published before the solid state stabilizers were commercially available but from what I can tell, the instructions tell you how to make what you get when you buy a commercially available stabilizer.

I took both stabilizers into the garage and plugged them into a charging battery.

The voltage going in was around 13.5v.

On the old stabilizer, the voltage coming out at the I terminal fluctuated repeatedly from 12.1v down to 0 then back up to 12.1v at around a 1 second cycle.

On the new stabilizer there was 0v output all the time at the I terminal.   

I have no reading on either my fuel gauge or my water temperature gauge.

My first thoughts were the voltage stabilizer is not working.

I bought a new one, looked up how to wire it up. B = battery or ignition dark green wire, I = instruments = light green 2 wires, earth the casing.

Still nothing on either gauge.

I shorted out the dark green and light green wires and the temperature gauge started climbing.

I tested the voltage in at 12.5v and the voltage out was around 4v. I connected up the old voltage stabilizer and the voltage out was around 12.5V but neither gauge worked.

I am confused.

I can understand the fuel sender gauge might rusted up and giving no reading, but I cannot understand how the water temperature gauge works with ignition voltage, but does not work using the voltage from the I side of the stabilizer. 

This means the plan is not to disassemble the whole car but to do what's needed whilst trying to get it back to the road asap.

  We all tried that .....you'll end doing a full rebuild.. !!   
Good luck, welcome, and keep us posted on the journey.

@dakazman

Thanks for the link. Banks used to have most of that on their website before the new people took over the parts section. So I know the part number, but no sizes given.

I'm ordering some other parts, so I'll ask them if they know the size (can even sell me one 

This forum really is excellent. Thank you for answering all my questions. The rebuild is going well (after the 10 year hiatus).
I repaired the bodywork where the 2nd fuel tank will sit at the weekend and am currently fitting a 2nd tank to my S2, along with the side mounted filler caps. Have decided last minute to fit some new [long] radiator pipes, rather than use the old ones. So a few steps back as I need to take the engine/box out again. But I don't want to have to replace them again in the near future and it's a whole lot easier with the body off