1 Cheap repair for fuel sender - Am I an idiot? Sat Apr 25, 2020 1:50 am
mynameisrodney
active member
Hi Guys,
So I have my tank pulled apart at the moment, looks like somebody put E10 in there at some point and all the rubbers have turned to goo.
The fuel sender has shat itself. Rusty as hell, and a bunch of broken wires. The prices for replacements were above what I was willing to spend, so I thought it try to repair it on the cheap. So I made up a little circuit board with some vero and some 15 ohm resistors. The vero is oriented vertically, so the arm wipes across the tracks as it would across the wires. Obviously this is going to go in steps rather than a continuous gauge, but i can live with that. I have been soaking a spare bit of vero and a spare resistor in petrol for a few days now and they look unchanged so far, so should be able to hold up to the petrol. Testing the sender now gives a range of 0.5 - 120 ohms (I read some people saying the max should be 110 and some saying its 130).
So far, it looks ok, will be slightly off and in steps, but thats ok with me. It's cost me $3 and some time. But the fact that I've never seen somebody do something similar gives me a funny feeling that I'm being stupid and haven't thought about something. So, am I an idiot?
Cheers,
Chris
EDIT: Sorry, forgot to also ask, is the 0.5ohm minimum value a concern?
So I have my tank pulled apart at the moment, looks like somebody put E10 in there at some point and all the rubbers have turned to goo.
The fuel sender has shat itself. Rusty as hell, and a bunch of broken wires. The prices for replacements were above what I was willing to spend, so I thought it try to repair it on the cheap. So I made up a little circuit board with some vero and some 15 ohm resistors. The vero is oriented vertically, so the arm wipes across the tracks as it would across the wires. Obviously this is going to go in steps rather than a continuous gauge, but i can live with that. I have been soaking a spare bit of vero and a spare resistor in petrol for a few days now and they look unchanged so far, so should be able to hold up to the petrol. Testing the sender now gives a range of 0.5 - 120 ohms (I read some people saying the max should be 110 and some saying its 130).
So far, it looks ok, will be slightly off and in steps, but thats ok with me. It's cost me $3 and some time. But the fact that I've never seen somebody do something similar gives me a funny feeling that I'm being stupid and haven't thought about something. So, am I an idiot?
Cheers,
Chris
EDIT: Sorry, forgot to also ask, is the 0.5ohm minimum value a concern?