Fuel sender trouble

[Zed]

Fuel gauge has been erratic, sometimes working, sometimes not.
Gauge checked out ok.
Voltage stabiliser ok.
Wire to sender with full tank 110 ohms. Then nothing. Then 110 ohms. Then nothing, nothing, nothing.
After lots of wire tracing and wiggling still nothing.

Sender panel removed and there's a paddling pool of petrol in the sender which can't have got there apart from through the sender itself. Bugger! But at least I don't have to take the engine out.

Got a new one from gsf to fit tomorrow.This one reads 8 ohms full, 80 ohms empty. Maybe my gauge will start reading correctly.

Anyone else had a leaking sender, I haven't come across this before?

[popegregoryxi]

Never seen one leak before.. is it an aftermarket part did you notice? They are pretty flimsy..

[Zed]

Aug 6, 2018 17:45:59 GMT popegregoryxi said:

Never seen one leak before.. is it an aftermarket part did you notice? They are pretty flimsy..

I think there's only aftermarket available nowadays and I probably fitted it just 3 years ago. It's been petrol smelly for the last couple but only just given up working altogether. Maybe it's leaked from new. I think I have a spare in Sandybay's shed but he's orf on his jollies at the moment so I got one from gsf because now I know there's a pool of petrol on top of the tank I can't live with it.

[sANDYbAY]

Leaking out the top of the tank through the sender hole? If so you’ve got far too much money and confidence. Mine rarely gets more than 3/4 put in just to be on the safe side.

[Zed]

Aug 6, 2018 20:48:26 GMT sANDYbAY said:

Leaking out the top of the tank through the sender hole? If so you’ve got far too much money and confidence. Mine rarely gets more than 3/4 put in just to be on the safe side.

I don't particularly enjoy fuelling up so I always brim it then run it to nearly empty. I always stop at the first click. Because the gauge doen't work I filled up today to be on the safe side. I only got 15L in. Oops. That was a bit annoying so I thought I should fix the gauge and that's when the trouble started.

If I'm a little more honest it's always smelled after brimming it for the first 10 miles and I knew it wasn't the filler as I checked that. Then as it hadn't burst into flames and it's an engine out job to check the tank properly I sort of lost interest.

[Zed]

Two faults.
Dodgy wiring.
Leaking sender.
Replaced wiring from where it splits out of the loom to the sender.
Replaced the sender.
All appears to be good.

[Eoin]

Mine seems to work OK, apart from ignoring the last 10 - 15 litres in the tank. Assuming I am right that the tank is 60 litres, when I show nearly empty (a fraction above), the most I have got in is 48 litres. Is there a calibration that can be done on the gauge?

[Zed]

Aug 8, 2018 14:28:14 GMT Eoin said:

Mine seems to work OK, apart from ignoring the last 10 - 15 litres in the tank. Assuming I am right that the tank is 60 litres, when I show nearly empty (a fraction above), the most I have got in is 48 litres. Is there a calibration that can be done on the gauge?

I think it's more like 55 litres?
If you measure resistance between the brown/white wire on the fuel gauge and body/earth you should find approx 8-10 ohms when full and 80 ohms empty.

Also when you measure the voltage on the short wire between the regulator and the gauge you should find 5.5v (I think - google vw speedy jim). The gauge is essentially an ameter.

My new sender max and min ohms checked out when it was in my hand. There are bendy stops to control that. Whether that corresponds with the float hitting the top and bottom of the tank is anyones guess. When I fill up next time I'll see what the gauge does. I wish I had tried the new sender wired to the gauge before I fitted it, but I was side tracked by the wiring and forgot. I threw the old one away.

[chad]

Fuel tank capacity seems to have been consistently quoted as 60 litres or about 13 gallons.

13.2 Imperial Gallons is 60 litres  so someone's abacus needed recalibrating.

[Zed]

As they were made in Germany I'm going with 56 litres. 👍

But maybe that's tank capacity and if you brim it you'd get a couple more lires in the filler pipe.

[gooner]

I stopped buying fuel senders about 5 years ago after getting through 3 within a year, the first of the 3 worrying melted. It would be nice to know how much juice I have rather than fill up every 200 miles.

[sANDYbAY]

That’s a very useful chart Chad, I’ll be able to give the ferry companies exact measurements in mm and let them work it out. I normally book on as a 4x4 and so far I’ve gotten away with it.

[chad]

It's from a 73 handbook on TheSamba :

www.thesamba.com/vw/archives/manuals/type2.php

It's a bit of a pain to find the exact page you want in any particular manual but I've found them useful at times.

[Zed]

... and so...

I filled up, switched on and waited for the gauge needle to settle...exactly on full. 👍

But it smells of petrol after filling up so I'll have to dig for the sender again and see if I can see what's happening. 👎

[912]

I’ve had new ones leak through the wire out of the box, I mixed some bits up to make the new bottom bits fit the og top