I believe the grey face gauge works with the early type sender that is in a tube. The black face later type works with the type that has a float on the end of an arm. I hope that makes sense. I don't think they're interchangeable.
Pass. I just think I learnt in the dim and distant past that early gauges aren't compatible with late senders.
Hoping this sorts my issue. NOS fuel gauge. My wallet hurts a little after this purchase Sent from my Pixel 3 XL using Tapatalk
Fuel gauge In and working as it should, finally. I ended up going back to the old voltage regulator as it seem to give better results. Due to a broken terminal on the old one I removed the river from the new and attached the terminal to the old one. Pics included, not sure if anyone can tell me if they are the same type of regulator? Old one has glass fuse. Also I'm assuming these fuel gauge like to go fro. Full to half quick quickly. As after initial install I was only reading 1/4 of a tank, knowing that I had filled her to the brim, camping trip just gone, I assumed I had alot more fuel than it was reporting. So a trip to the petrol station and 15L of fuel later it's reading as the pic shows. I really should not not assumed the amount of fuel and worked with a full tank in the first place. £80 fuel gauge and £20 of fuel later it's fixed. Sent from my Pixel 3 XL using Tapatalk
It’s not a glass fuse - it’s a festoon light bulb. Replace it with one of the same rating if it’s playing up.
The fuel sender as you know is a simple lever with a float on the end and a wiper moving over resistive winding at the other end near the pivot point. As the float drops in an arc, the first movement from full where the lever is mostly horizontal- say 3 O’clock on a clock face - to half is mostly vertical so it sweeps across the windings faster than when it approaches empty as it’s then moving horizontally more towards the vertical - say 5-6 o’clock. Hope that makes sense? The windings should take this into account as they should be closer together at one end of the contact wiper movement across the coil and more spaced out at the other so the same amount of movement varies the resistance more slowly - and therefore the voltage through the meter - at a progressively different rate across the arc to compensate. I noticed with a new sender that this didn’t look as spaced out as the original so it drops quickly to start with and then slows towards empty. So ‘half full’ is actually more likely closer to 3/4 full. Unless you’re going round a corner in which case the float bobs around like mad. That’s what the stabiliser is supposed to help reduce. Confused? That’s my fault! Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
I gave up on the original voltage regulators, and have put this in. Working OK so far. Anyone know if it should be OK? Sent from my SM-N970F using Tapatalk
Bad pic. It's says 6v. i measured it, it's a tad over, something like 6.01v. Sent from my SM-N970F using Tapatalk
I'm gonna stick with it. Can't think how it could do any damage, especially as so far it seems a more robust regulator, even if it did cost less than two quid. We shall see. Fingers crossed Sent from my SM-N970F using Tapatalk
From what I did, 6.01 V will be fine. In 2013 I put on a new voltage stabiliser and all was reading fine. In 2015 the sender expired but when I fitted a new one I found the gauge was reading low, and wouldn't reach the full point. I checked the voltage stabiliser and was getting 5.1 V, about correct, but I decided to experiment and got a selection of zener diodes from Maplin. I swapped for a 6.2 V diode and now it goes fractionally higher than the full point, but it's been running fine for three years like this. The linearity of the scale is terrible mind you but that's the sender's fault.
I'm interested to know if you've got an original sender or a repro. I'm about to start trying to rewind a couple as original as I believe it's the pattern of the windings that if correct should give a decent linear reading. Would be good to know if it's worth the effort?
If you look back at http://thelatebay.com/index.php?threads/which-fuel-tank-sender.85338/page-2 you can see what my original sender was like. The one in at the moment is a repro wound on a rectangular former with equal spacing. Here's some more pics of the windings on the original. I counted approximately 40 turns.
Interesting. Is that from a VDO? The two VDO senders I have here have rectangular plates but with similarly spaced windings to yours. Mine have 54 windings. Is yours a later type?
It is a VDO model, but I guess it must be a later development to more accurately mimic the contours of the tank and the float geometry. Mine’s a 79. Thinking about it, where you have the windings closer together, you get a greater change in resistance for a smaller movement. It’s less towards the centre, and putting that narrow waist on it must decrease the effect. Either way, if you’re going to have a go at rewinding, I suspect you need to replicate the tight turns at the ends or you’ll end up with a sender no better than the repro one I have on at the moment, which is uniformly wound. It would probably be easier to wind the sender equally spaced, and devise an electronic circuit which made the adjustment at the gauge end, and I vaguely remember seeing something like that, but can’t recall where.
