squirrelybird

ok i know about the sahpe of our gas tanks and how "half a tank" on the gausge isnt really half a tank...but...

it seems like lately my fuel gauge is less accurate. usually, i dont trust it at all and just wathc the miles on the trip odometer, but this weekend my brother had to borrow the car to go home....he ran out of gas--the gauge read 1/4 tank! haha thats about right i told him! anyways, is there a fix for this??

i was thinking, since it reads 1/4 tanks when empty, and when i fill up, the needle is pinned on the right past the full mark, could i just "move" the needle position to be more accurate??

thanks guys.

P.S., i tried to search, it wouldn't work for me.

xxwarrior36xx

I don't know the answer but would love too hear it, my car is TERRIBLE for the gas gauge. I just use my odometer to gauge when I need gas

Air_Adam

Yer lucky... my gas guage reads "full" untill i have about 1/8th of a tank left... then, and ONLY THEN will it read right, lol.

EvilCartman

iTrader: (1)

When mine goes on the Empty line it makes me nervous but when I fill up, 11 gallons go in :/ Probably drove 10 miles showing empty the other day hehe.

JamesC

iTrader: (5)

I'm pretty much like Evil. Showing empty, the car still has three gallons or so.

JamesC

waltersb

My car isn't all that bad... 55 liter tank. (15.5 gal for those Usanians... and dudes that don't know)

My needle stays high for a long time, then goes down quick.. even when the needle is on the empty mark I'm still only putting 40-45 liters in.

That's about as close as I like to take it.

Suppose we gotta realize that the signal to the gauge cluster is electronic... who knows what happens in the middle...

squirrelybird

ive heard that the reason it drops so fast after a certain point is because of the way the tank is shaped and the gauge does not compensate for the shape.

what i am saying is that mine used to be empty when it (was close to ) empty on the gauge. now it is WAY off. would it hurt anything if, when i remove teh needles, i just put that one on so it points toward empty a little more?? or would it be a bad idea to mess with where the needle points?

waltersb

Someone mentioned on a post somewhere the best way to remove the needles... something to do with a screw in the back but I think he was talking about the speedometer, might be similar.....

Vader

You can test the accuracy (or at least the functionality) of the fuel gauge by using a 100 ohm potentiometer in place of the level sensor. The gauge should read exactly full at 90 ohms, and should read exactly empty at 0 ohms. If you unplug the sensor the gauge should peg toward full-scale.

eric17422001

Spunds like a standard Camaro fuel gauge to me.

Eric

squirrelybird

ok...how's this sound....

i wait till i'm out of gas, i mean when i know its low, go home, and let it run till it stalls out. then, with an empty tank, i take off the needle, and put it back on so it points to empty.

wouldn't that make teh gauge a little more useful? or would it do damage? are there any flaws you can see in that logic? that's what i want to know.

waltersb

How bad is it on the car to run it right outa gas?

I somehow don't think this is one of the brighter ideas..

no_car_yet

mine is almost always on empty. it shows empty so i put in 25bucks. then it shows about 1/8th of a tank, i wish there was a fix for this?!?!?!?!?!!?

breathment

hehe only that it might be a little easier to fill the tank all the way and adjust the pointer to full. that is if the guage is like mine and goes above the F mark when its filled up.

SSC

To fix the problem you need to get a new sender unit, the old one are considered a wear item. That said my car is accurate to a point, on E from a full tank theres a good 5 gallons left. Seems like nowdays my car never gets above empty.

squirrelybird

breathmint....i thought of that,as mine doest the same. however, my thoughts are that i would ather know when it is really empty, rather than really full.

Raiden

Vader, Or anyone else for that matter;
Where in the heck is the sensor?

Chris89GTA

iTrader: (2)

i fill mine up and its pegged about 1/4 past the F mark... but E is about right... it stays high and then drops rapidly... which is caused by the tank shape... i just fill up when it hits the red... or just after... i have gone 20 miles after hitting the red before... but then i had to put in like 14.8 gallons of gas

chymos

Oh, this is the fun part: it's in the gas tank!

</sarcasm>

Seriously, to change it you'll have to drop the gas tank. Not sure how difficult that is, as I've never done it.

TekViper

i have just learned to gas up whenever its conviinent even if i have more then like half a tank according to the needle. doesnt cost any more or less then waiting for it to get low.

Ghigman3

Oh your gonna like this. I've had to drop the gas tank and would you believe in order to get it out your have to practicly drop the rear end out of the car. You have to unbolt the shocks, taking out the panhard bar and the brace above it, take out the little bolt that holds the brake line to the rear, take out the gas door/cup, and after all the you get to unbolt the gas tank and shove it this way and that to get it out. I would recommend that if you do it do it with as little gas in the tank as possible. You wouldn't believe how much easier it is to get it out when its near empty :-). Have fun!

92camaro44

mine does the exact same thing

91FireChicken

mine does a similar thing, although, it worked fine before I took it to the shop that changed my fuel pump (never again will I let someone who I'm paying work on my car, only me or my friends who do it for free - or for beer) ... since those $#!^heads changed it, the guage reads 1/4 tank higher than where it is.. I'm not sure if the sensor or whatever isn't pushed down far enough? maybe it's 1/4 of a tank too high? hell, I don't even know how the thing works, so I may be way off... but it stays pegged over the Full line for a good 50-75 miles, then finally starts dropping .. and then at 1/4 of a tank, if I take a turn somewhat fast, the engine sputters a little, so I know it's pretty low.. then I'll fill it and I'll put 14.5-15 gallons in...

85SportCoupeto89RS

Just this week I drove until my gauge was on the warning line just above the E mark. And Put 9.8 gallons in so I still have another 5 to use but still it just eggs on your mind when the needle is pointing at that e and your out in the middle of no where near a gas station. 12 miles to the nearest gas station so I better have gas in the tank when I get home or i'm screwed, LOL

TomP

One day I'm driving along, and I watched my fuel level rise to way past full- WAY past full. So I started asking questions...

I was told the wiper arm rubs against a stainless steel element in our cars, and that eventually, the wiper rubs thru the element, snapping it. The guy told me later model cars used a carbon-fiber element which wasn't suceptible to the same kind of wear-thru problem.

Bummer is, you can't just buy the element from GM. That'd be too easy. They'll sell you the $300 pump hanger, which includes a new wiper arm & float, and element. (Of course, it doesn't include a pump.) The same guy told me that if I went to a junkyard and found an easy-to-get-at fuel tank from a late 80's-up car, like a Beretta or Cavalier, I could pirate the element from the gas tank's fuel sender. He said the element unclips, and fits exactly into the same holes as our f-body element does on the f-body sender.

Luckily, my gauge fixed itself after a week. Can anyone confirm this stainless-steel vs carbon-fiber element story? The guy said he did it to his car... but this was before digital cameras, before anyone had pictures on the 'net.

You can burn up the fuel pump. I used to think it was cool when I was very low on gas, took a turn, the engine would cut out (pump running dry!!), and after the turn, the engine would come back on. Yeah, real cool, TomP. Good way to burn up a fuel pump. After my first time changing the pump, I've never let the fuel level get that low again. I always at least have a 1/4 tank of gas. Also, the fuel pump gets cooled by the fuel in the tank. If there's not enough fuel in the tank to cool the pump, it gets hot, and that can force an early death, too.

'Course, a year and a half later, the friggin' Borg-Warner replacement pump died, so I was dropping the tank AGAIN! I got another one from Pep Boys (free, lifetime warranty), but when I drop the gas tank again this summer (sigh) to replace my rear 1/4 panel (welding), I'll put in a genuine AC/Delco pump.

Oh hey if you do dive in there, you might want to replace the pump anyway- AC/Delco pump is about $90. Either replace the $40 pulsator (piece between the pump and fuel inlet tube) with a new one, OR, get rid of it entirely with a short piece of high-pressure fuel hose and some clamps. The Pulsator is designed to "quiet the fuel pump"- and it uses O-rings, which can tear and leak and cause you to lose fuel pressure. I reused it the first time, then found out about the bad news... the second time around, I used the high pressure fuel hose and two clamps, and have had no problems since.

84 Z-28 350

man I love having an aftermarket EFI on an origanally carbed car- no pump in tank, if mine goes the aftermarket one is mounted under the back seat(under the car) easy fix. by the way my gauge reads fine execpt it hit's E and it only takes 11 gallons to fill it up W/ a 16 gallon tank

Denis.V

In the 80's I had an old Ford A 1930. The bad accuracy of the fuel gauge for full - 1/4 - 0 was the exact same thing as described here.

How is possible that GM, Ford an others can,t solve this problem in 73 years?!!!!!!.

brodyscamaro

how did you manage 1.35 MPG?

so your gauge isnt accurate, take a number and wait in line lol. i really can not remember when the last time i looked at my gas gauge was. i am guessing it has been years.....

patrickm00

i think he meant 20 miles past empty, not 20 total...

anyway, the point about the pump being cooled only by gas is right on the mark, and electric pumps burn out very fast when pumping air.

since you know the resistance range for the gauge, 0=E 90ohm=F, you could simply fix the gauge with a couple resistors. just measure what yours is when empty, go fill it up and do it again, and then do some simple math to see how much resistance you'd need to correct (series will add resistance, parallel will basically lower it. a combination can account for an error on both ends of the gauge, though maybe not exactly.)