Fuel Gauge That Actually Works!

[Guest mc_clean_david]

Hi, I have a 2B Plus and have had it on the road for about 6 months, but i have never been able to get the fuel guage to work right!

 

The 2 main probs i have are:

 

- It will only go to 3/4 full when the car is filled up to the neck!

 

- It shows empty after about 90 miles

 

I then filled the car up to the neck again, but could only fit 14 litres in, so i must only have used less than 1/2 a tank of fuel! Correct?

 

Has anyone got the ford gauge to work? or does anyone know of a different fuel sender and guage that actually works?

 

I don't mind if i have to put an extra clock on the dash and do away with the sierra one!

[enforcer]

Mine registers 'full' when it is full, and empty when it is about 1/3 full. I'm happy with that as I don't want to disturb the seal on the sender which is doing its job well. I know that I can safely get about 150 miles from my 30L tank when it is full, and tend to use the odometer rather than the fuel guage to judge when to visit the garage again.

 

You have the option of removing the sender again and experimenting with bending / lengthening to get the right reading.

[Guest mc_clean_david]

Did u change or modify your float or length of arm?

[enforcer]

Yes - the depth of the RH tank was different from the sierra's. What I did was draw out on a big piece of card the dimensions of the RH tank and placed the sender unit over the diagram. It was then a matter of putting a couple of bends in the arm to roughly show the arc of its movement from empty to full. I was a little over-generous on the 'empty' however, hence being able to go some 50 miles after it has reached the bottom of the scale!

[Grizzly]

Did u change or modify your float or length of arm?

Hi David,

Basically, you could do with a sender that matches the clocks. I'm using Capri clocks so needed a Capri sender. I managed to get one in the end.

TAKE CARE WHEN MESSING WITH THESE, AS SPARKS AND FUEL CAN BE DANGEROUS EH?

Once you've got the right sender:

1. You need to check that when the float is at the top of it's travel, it's both corresponding with the top of the tank AND reading full. If not, you need to find out why.

2. You need to check that when the float is at the bottom of it's travel, it's both corresponding with the bottom of the tank AND reading emptyl. If not, you need to find out why.

If you fancy your chances you can take the sender unit gubbins apart and experiment.

Once you're happy that the gauge is reading properly, it's a case of carefully bending and/or extending the float arm accordingly.

Failing all this, just go off the trip meter.

Hope this helps.

[baj25]

David,

it's as Grizzly says- the simple thing is to get a sender and guage that match. There are lots of different permutations so it's pot luck unless you get the 'right' ones.

I used a telemetrix sender and guage (about 40 quid from CAI) and made an adapter plate for the hole on the tank- as accurate as any guage on a production car!

HTH, Brian

[Guest mc_clean_david]

I am using the sierra sender and sierra clocks!

[Guest salty_monk]

Then you need to tweak the float arm as suggested above. That will be all that's throwing it out.

 

Dan