fuel sender problems

[Miggs]

well i got a full tank but the gauge is on empty anyone got any tips???

[abm914]

Check your feeds to the sender & the gauge, both live & earth. Also have you checked that there is actually petrol in the tank. We wouldn't want you to have to put new plugs in, take them out, put the old plugs back in, take them out, rebuild your carbs, twice, or anything like that just because you forgot to put petrol in the tank.

Ad.

[Miggs]

yes there is petrol in it this time will check the feeds

[912uk]

te he I am the other way round it shows a full tank and I have er none...OK Mr RAC man nice to see you again ....I will a gallon of my Ususal.....ops

I have a new sender and I will be checking the feeds

[69Olive]

Miggs

If it's not the electrical connections, it could be the unit itself. I took mine out of my tank recently and dis-assembled it. Basically a float moves up and down 2 very thin wires. My float moved very erratically and got stuck in one position several times.

I stuck the tube in a pint mug filled with diluted POR 15 Marine Clean. This is excellent at getting rid of sticky residue. The liquid promptly turned dark brown. After inverting it and leaving it for a while then putting it back together, I was amazed at the difference. Very smooth movement.

It might sound like hassle, but in my opinion, it will only improve the sender.

(edited for spelling!)

[Robster]

Yep,

I'll second that - mine didn't work so hauled the sender out - it was covered in 30 years of crap - gave it a clean

now works fine..

best regards
Robster

[912uk]

I will say that miggs one does seam to have an odd fault. Swap over the other sender unit in the other car as our phone call and see if this helps.. if not you can borrow mind and see if that is any good I will bring it to Woodstock.

Mark

[timster]

Having similar problem with my sender - definately works as when taken out of the tank and moved around with ignition on (watch for sparks lads) the gauge moves accordingly. Which is great. But a soon as it goes back in the tank then it just sticks againat whatever amount of fuel happened to be in the tank at the time.

Reckon a good old clean would do the trick but what do I use to clean it without contaminating the fuel? What's POR 15 Marine Clean and where can I buy a pint of it? Robster - what did you use? Would SPAR vodka work?

cheers,

timster

[Ian Gunney]

After two years of having a non functioning gauge, swapped it for a spare 914 one and hey presto everything works! Felt a bit of a prat for not checking if they were the same before!

Have plenty of 914 senders in the shed if anyone needs one

Ian

[timster]

Cheers Ian - Will try the cleaning option first but tempted by an ex-914 jobby if that fails.

tim

[69Olive]

You can buy POR-15 Marine Clean from www.frost.co.uk http://www.frost.co.uk/item_Detail.asp?productID=8680

Good Luck

[timster]

Cheers - got around to sorting this out with some POR 15 thssi weekend - works a treat at cleaning the thing up.

Sender still sticking slightly but seems to be affected by how tight I screw the bolts in at the top of the tank...strange.

Thanks again for advice.

tim

[69Olive]

Weird! It could be that your sender is touching the bottom of the tank - but that doesn't sound very plausible.

I do know that the new cork gasket I used was about 4 times thicker than the one I replaced.

I still have the odd problem with fuel level readings but I know that is down to the connecter being a bit loose.