Fuel Sender Repair - 348 (Defect in my opinion)

My fuel gauge was one of the things not working when I embarked on this winter's 42k tear down of the car.

Since I already had the tank out and apart because I wanted to fix the loose baffles I was able to attack the fuel gauge diagnostics in the obvious way:

- Tested the dash gauges by shorting out two pins on the connector to the sender (located under the car at sender). See photo below. There are three wires, a black and two colored. Just short one color to the black and watch either the low light come on, or the gas gauge ramp up to full. Test both colored wires to black and you'll know if you have a problem at the dash. I did not have a dash problem.

- Take the sender apart. The plastic ends can be gently pried apart.

- You should be able to figure out how the whole thing works pretty easily. Its simple! There is a short coiled spring that is used for the low fuel light and a long coiled wire that provides connection to the moving float. The float has a couple of rounded teeth that slide down the variable resistance tube. You can check for continuity on all the components and find out if there are breaks anywhere very easily.

- You will note from the photos that the center of the resistance tube has a wire that runs down its length then terminates with a female connector. (See small female connector circled in photo below).

- This female connector is NOT located in the center of the tube, it just hangs there loose. There is literally no support to hold it in the center of the tube so when it was initially assembled in the factory the male nipple that was to engage it did not do so effectively. The unit worked until that connection came loose.

- So ... I manufactured a quick little plastic annulus that would hold the connector centered (using a small piece of a zip tie bent into a round), then reassemble the whole thing and voila .... works like new.


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