I had my gauge go out last fall at the track, and the easy assumption is that it's the floater in the tank, but before I go to all the trouble of opening it up (which I hate doing), I thought I'd solicit some insights.

The gauge doesn't just read low, the needle is completely fallen... I recall it initially reading low within the range, then drooping down to where it's shown in the attached pic, never moving.

Is it possible I've got a faulty guage, vs. just a broken floater?

 

And WTF is it with the forum lately posting pics upside down?!

 

Lol, I was gunna say that your pic is a little wonky

My gas gauge has been screwy for years, I assume it is due to a screw up when a shop in the UK upgraded my fuel system and stuck an 044 in the tank. My gauge just reads very low (full tank of gas only registers about 1/2 full on the gauge) but it still has power and shows some movement.

If your gauge is completely dead like that I'd look outside of the float (kinda good news, since you don't want to remove the fuel pump tree, kinda bad news because that means digging elsewhere..) BUT, I'm nowhere near a "professional" so take my suggestion for what it is: simply the opinion of another forum member

 

A gauge will react like that if the signal is gone..like the wire is broke or something. I would suggest looking at the connection at the fuel pump. A completely failed sending unit could be another issue but to check this without removing anything you would disconnect the white plug at the gas tank and apply ground to the sending wire which runs up to the gauge.

The two bigger wires are for the fuel pump and the smaller ones are for the low level light and the level gauge. Should be easy as cake to test.

 

I searched this subject recently because I thought I was having a gauge issue too. Easiest to check is the small ground that bolts to the Fuel Tree, that gets very rusty and it could cause the gauge to not get a signal.

 

Ground looks fine—I even cleaned it off.

Sounds like the gauge behavior means it's electrical, not the floater, so it may be best to run it by the shop.

 

Like I said...disconnect the white connector at the tank cover.

now you take a wire/jumper lead whatever that is connected to ground and you touch that to either of the two smaller wires going in to that white connector. You can place a safety pin in the connector and then touch that pin to your grounded wire/lead.

The 2 big wires going into the connector are for the fuel pump, leave those alone.

With key in the on position when you ground the wires you will either see the low level light come on....or you will see your fuel gauge start to rise.

This test will verify that all the wiring to the gauge/gauge itself is fine or not. If this works then then next step would be making sure the ground wire/tab on the fuel cover is ok (which you said it is) and then finally pulling the actual hanger to check the float.

That is really all you need to do....no need to pay a shop for something this simple to check first

 

^--- read my mind good luck

 

Yea I agree, These are pretty simple to check out. Two wires essentially. I had to get one straight on my jeep once that died like this. It turned out to be a short on the lead wire. Was touching a washer and grounding out.

 

OK, so the gauge and low-level light work when jumped. The gauge just keeps climbing towards full if I leave the ground connected (I was hoping it would show me the fuel level!)

So I guess it's either the float, or the sending unit itself?

 

correct. What the float does is act as a potentiometer limiting the amount of ground the gauge sees basically. So by giving it full ground like you did it will max the gauge.

I would verify that the ground on the fuel cover is actually good. Check resistance between the tab with the wire connected and a good known ground. If that checks out then your pulling the hanger which isn't really bad. I will bet the problem will be pretty apparent once you do that.

good luck

 

had this problem, turned out to be the float. Kinda sucked and got higher then I wanted to fishing around the tank for the old float, all for not.

Then I remember I had an after market sending unit with a float behind some stuff on a shelf.

Quick fix once you got all the bits, now my gauge is reading again

 

Yep

I think it was the float in Pete's case but it's not working again because the baffles are probably loose knocking the float off each time he tracks the car.

Word to the wise. If your float comes off you may have loose baffles

 

I definitely have loose baffles, so what is the best answer to that? Remove the baffles, or somehow re-weld the baffles?

 

When you pull the float out, you can check it by connecting an ohmmeter to each wire going to the float. Simply move the float arm slowly from empty to full and watch the ohmmeter for any open circuits or high resistance areas.

Sometimes my float gets stuck in the lowest position after hard left turns. The gauge will pin way past empty. When that happens,I'll have to pull the hanger out and reset the float arm... Or make a hard right turn and sometimes the arm will free itself.

 

Easiest fix is a new tank