Fuel Sender Dead?
Thread Starter
Racer
Joined: Mar 2006
Posts: 380
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St. Jude Donor '08
Fuel Sender Dead?
So a few months ago i was running on fumes, so I had to stop at a crappy gas station. I put in their premium fuel but a few days later my gas gauge stopped working. It suddenly started working fine again a day later and I went to a good gas station and ran a bottle of techron through the car. Fast forward to the past few weeks, when I fill up the gas gauge will never hit full and it always seems a bit "off". Today, it stops working again!
Im interested to see if it suddenly works tomorrow, but i guess im gonna have to fix this (next year when i take it out of winter hibernation). Whats involved? and do I have to worry that once the sender craps, the pumps are on their way? Should I change the fuel pump while I'm at it? How tough is this job?
Im interested to see if it suddenly works tomorrow, but i guess im gonna have to fix this (next year when i take it out of winter hibernation). Whats involved? and do I have to worry that once the sender craps, the pumps are on their way? Should I change the fuel pump while I'm at it? How tough is this job?
Tech Contributor
Joined: Dec 2003
Posts: 19,384
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From: Horncastle Lincolnshire, England
2023 C5 of the Year Finalist - Unmodified
I'd carry on with techron for a while before going in deep. I've heard guys have to use 3 or 4 bottles before it improved. In my case one bottle and it fixed it straight away but maybe I caught it early.
The fix is a sensor replacement which involves dropping the tanks.
The fix is a sensor replacement which involves dropping the tanks.
Thread Starter
Racer
Joined: Mar 2006
Posts: 380
Likes: 0
St. Jude Donor '08
I'm almost at the point of ruinning a bottle of Xylene through the car, that will cure anything!
Advanced
Joined: Feb 2005
Posts: 74
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Your right tank fuel level sender is probably dirty. It’s common problem. Techron helps clean it. The way most cars work the sender is submerged in gasoline almost all the time. Your Corvette has two gas tanks. The way the Corvette fuel system is plumbed the right sender is only submerged in gasoline until the fuel level goes below ½ tank. Then the right tank is empty and the sender is in gas fumes only. What little gas is I there splashes on the sender and evaporates leaving the solids from the gas. If you are mechanically inclined, the sender is not to hard to clean. If you clean it you will see the problem. The resister will have some build up on it causing some of the windings to short out and cause an incorrect output. Do a search on fuel sender and there should be a procedure on how to get to it. A pencil eraser and some contact cleaner work well to clean it. If you use techron make sure you have at least ¾ of a tank of gas or you won’t get any techron into the right tank. My experience is that techron works somewhat but cleaning really works.
