hi, all of a sudden my fuel gauge is giving strange readings, its a 1977 mini 1000. when i put say a fiver in it the gauge reads just above half which is normal, but when i drive off down the road it will all of a sudden say i have hardly any petrol left, in traffic it is up and down constantly and sometimes gives an accurate reading when completely stopped and only ticking over. i have checked the wires going into the back of the gauge and all seems fine. any ideas what it could be?
thanx
Ant
fuel gauge telling me lies
Started by
Ant
, May 15 2006 04:13 PM
3 replies to this topic
#2
pikey7
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Up Into Fourth
Posted 15 May 2006 - 04:16 PM
Duff voltage regulator? I'm not sure if that early a car had one though! It'll be by the speedo if it has. Check & clean the connections to the tank too.
#3
dklawson
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Moved Into The Garage
- Name: Doug
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Posted 15 May 2006 - 04:27 PM
The stabilizer was added in '64 so this car would have one. Since you aren't reporting similar problems with your temperature gauge I doubt you're having trouble with the stabilizer.
Start with the "usual suspects", check the grounds. The sending unit in the boot will have a black wire going off into the loom. Make sure that both lugs on the sending unit are clean and that the black wire has a good earth connection on its other end. If in doubt, run a new black wire for the earth connection from the sending unit to a bare metal spot in the boot or directly to the battery (-) terminal.
If that doesn't fix your problem, pull the sending unit. The first part of your problem description is consistent with a broken resistor wire in the sending unit (reads OK then suddenly drops to empty). Repair of this problem is by replacement. The part about sometimes reading OK at idle and then "not", is a bit puzzling. There is a conductive brass strip inside the mid-1970s senders that goes from the "hot" lug on the sender to the resistance wire. I've seen these break and perhaps this could be your intermittent problem. That type of failure is easily fixed by soldering across the break.
Start with the "usual suspects", check the grounds. The sending unit in the boot will have a black wire going off into the loom. Make sure that both lugs on the sending unit are clean and that the black wire has a good earth connection on its other end. If in doubt, run a new black wire for the earth connection from the sending unit to a bare metal spot in the boot or directly to the battery (-) terminal.
If that doesn't fix your problem, pull the sending unit. The first part of your problem description is consistent with a broken resistor wire in the sending unit (reads OK then suddenly drops to empty). Repair of this problem is by replacement. The part about sometimes reading OK at idle and then "not", is a bit puzzling. There is a conductive brass strip inside the mid-1970s senders that goes from the "hot" lug on the sender to the resistance wire. I've seen these break and perhaps this could be your intermittent problem. That type of failure is easily fixed by soldering across the break.
#4
Ant
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Passed Test
Posted 15 May 2006 - 04:34 PM
thanx people, will have a go at it the weekend, thanx for clearing up the duplicate post dklawson, i didnt realise straight away.
Ant
Ant
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