Another fuel gauge question

[luvbowties]

Originally Posted by Buckthetruck

I spent this afternoon reading through several threads on fuel gauges. My gauge sits at empty all the time but drops to a little more empty with the ignition switch turned on. From what I can tell, it seems I may have a hole in the float. Does this sound right? I did a little tweaking with the ground wire but nothing changed. I did notice, though, that I could get the needle to move up a little with a little heavier acceleration. Does this go in line with the hole in the float theory? It is a '65 c10 with the in cab tank. The PO put in a new sending unit and said that the gauge just doesn't work. If I unplug it from the fuse block, it jumps to full. Thanks.
Posted via Mobile Device

You asked, "Does this sound right?". Answer is 'YES'. With a hole in the float, it rests on tank bottom all the time, showing a constant fuel level of EMPTY--or very close.

At least your EMPTY-reading portion of the system seems to be operating ok. Now, if you can just get that float to rise with fuel level, it MIGHT show the OTHER levels correctly. *CAUTION: It could have your symptoms with the correct 0-30 ohm sender OR with an incorrect 0-90 ohm sender OR.....see(* below *)

When you remove sender to check float, *check to ensure sender-resistance moves from 0 to 30 ohms*, as you manually swing float arm between its max positions. Also, floats aren't expensive; but they can be successfully soldered when in a pinch or hurry.

Also, you have to pull it out and get a meter on it--gotta pull it out to fix the float anyhow! If it DID have a marking on it, I wouldn't trust it, as the same leftover 'housings' may have been used on the next-year's models.

Also, I have found floats just loose from the swing arm.
HTH'
sam