fuel gauge

[mehoff400]

so i have been messing with my fuel gauge lately trying to get it to work. when i first go the truck i replaced the sending unit it still didnt work but i moved onto other things. i just replaced the gauge with another gauge i acquired and not sure if its working correctly

when i remove the ground from the sending unit with power on the needle doesn't move
when i remove the wire to the sending unit to gauge it goes to full.

from my understanding when i remove the ground it should go to empty.

[jdl71]

I fought this for a while myself and just recently got it resoved. I put a "new" repop sending unit in mine, and found the brass float was split in about 12 places. I ordered a plastic float from summit and all is well.

If the sending unit lead is disconnected from the gauge (or fuse panel), it should read full. When you say you removed the "ground from the sending unit" are you referring to wire that goes from the sending unit to the back of the cab, or the wire that goes from the fuse panel to the sending unit?

This might help

https://www.fillingstation.com/artic...ugetesting.htm

[mehoff400]

yes, removed wire that goes from sending unit to back of cab

some good info there thanks!.... i wonder if my replacement gas float was bad

[jdl71]

It seems to be a fairly common problem, the new ones are cheap chinese junk. You can unhook the wire going to the sending unit, turn key on and gauge should read full. Take this loose end and touch it to ground (make sure the ground is good, this threw me off also) and gauge should go to empty. If both of those work you have eliminated everything up to the sender. Pull the sender back out and I'll bet it's split open and full of gas.

[mehoff400]

nice, just tried that and it went to empty when grounded out.

any suggestions on where to get a working replacement fuel sending unit?

[jdl71]

It's probably not the unit, but just the float. Pull the unit out of the tank, hook it up and move the arm up and down and see if the gauge moves. If so the unit is fine. It should be pretty obvious if the float is bad, it will be full of gas. I ordered a plastic float from summit and just replaced that part. I found a thread about this on here somewhere. Says it's for a jeep but works perfectly for our application:

https://www.summitracing.com/parts/omx-1772901