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So a few weeks ago my fuel gauge hung at around a half then suddenly dropped to reserve. I took the sende rout and cleaned it.
It took 18 gallons to fill the tank.
After filling the tank I reset the trip odometer. I drove until I had 168.4 miles. It took 9.5 gallons to fill the tank. So 17.7 mpg.
Here is what the fuel gauge showed. So the avg mpg is a little low but not much.
So based on a 20 gallon tank I should have been at 1/2 tank.
The gauge reads correctly when resistors are used in place of the sender so I'm thinking I need a new sender.
So a few weeks ago my fuel gauge hung at around a half then suddenly dropped to reserve. I took the sende rout and cleaned it.
It took 18 gallons to fill the tank.
After filling the tank I reset the trip odometer. I drove until I had 168.4 miles. It took 9.5 gallons to fill the tank. So 17.7 mpg.
Here is what the fuel gauge showed. So the avg mpg is a little low but not much.
So based on a 20 gallon tank I should have been at 1/2 tank.
The gauge reads correctly when resistors are used in place of the sender so I'm thinking I need a new sender.
Sender is an easy-peasy job. Fishing the thing out of the tank is the hardest part.
The sender is not a hard thing to do, thank goodness. I know they are cheap and easily replaceable it still is worth checking to see how much corrosion there is on the metals that are part of the sender.
I have cleaned the copper surface that the arm wipes over and made the sending units work accurately again. I believe the most common failure modes is that the arm that is attached to the float is not making a good contact with the sensor which makes for erratic operation at the fuel gauge. I have also seen corroded connectors above the fuel tank (where the fuel level gauge wire goes into the wiring harness) cause problems for the fuel gauge.
On softer metals used in sensors like fuel level sensors I use a standard pencil eraser to clean the metal contact area. DeOxIt does an amazing job of cleaning contact surfaces like this as well.
It is probably easier and cheaper to just replace it. My question is, are the replacement parts going to last like the originals did? I try to fix the original in cases like this as they are frequently built better than the replacements now days.
Fuel Gauge Help
