Ken, there are two wires that go to the sender. One is black and is the
ground. The other is colored. Remove the colored one and short it to the
ground while watching the guage (2 people work best). The guage should
move right up to full scale. Don't leave it there for long as you may
"over drive" the guage and burn it out. No problem for several seconds
while you short it and move to the inside to see it.
If the gauge moves to full scale, you have a problem with the sender. If
it does not move all the way, you have problems in the wiring or the
voltage stabilizer. If the Temp gauge is reading OK, then it is possible
that the VS is OK. The VS supplies a temperature compensated 10 volts
for these circuits.
If it moves to full scale, get out an ohmeter and measure the sender
resistance. It is best to remove the sender from the tank. This will
allow you to get full scale readings for both empty and full conditions.
When empty, the sender should be about 200 ohms. When full, it should be
about 20 ohms.
Good luck.
Vic Whitmore
76 Spitfire
Thornhill, Ontario
Ken Tharp wrote:
>
> Spit listers,
>
> My first posting to the new Spit list -
>
> My gasoline gauge only works a little. When I fill the tank, it reads a
> little less than 1/2 full. It rapidly slides down to "E" from there - by
> the time I've driven 50 miles on my new tank of gasoline, it says it's
> empty. I work around this by zeroing the trip odometer each time I fill
> up, but it'd be nice if it worked properly. Is there something wrong
> with the float? How does one replace the float if that is the problem?
>
> Thanks in advance!
>
> Ken Tharp
> '79 Spitfire 1500
> West Des Moines, IA
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