Re: Possessed GTV

[jack@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (Jack Hagerty)]

From: Walter Buchignani <walterb@domain.elided>

>after several weeks of erratic behaviour, the neddle jumping around like
>beads of water on a hotplate, the fuel-level guage on my 2000 GTV
>finally died the other night - or did it?

Probably.

>during a 30-minute drive, the needle remained in its rest position even
>though i know the gas tank was at least half full. when i parked the car
>and turned off the headlights, however, the needle suddenly jumped to
>the quarter-way mark. when i turned off the parking lights, the needle
>jumped to the half-way mark.

>any ideas?

Good timing. My fuel gauge just started exhibiting a similar behavior,
although it doesn't seem to be affected by turning other electrical
devices on and off.

A couple of years ago I had the instrument pod apart to have the speedo
worked on. If you're not careful you can knock the fuel gauge needle/coil 
assembly off of it's itty-bitty bearings before re-assembling (it's also 
possible to do this to the temp gauge). I had to take the pod apart and 
re-seat the needle assembly (a fairly delicate operation).

What caused the needle to fall off again recently was over-filling the
gas tank (stay with me on this). Normally, my gas guage rarely shows 
over 3/4 tank even after filling. About a month ago I filled up at a 
station that had just the right slope in just the right direction to make 
the filler neck entrance to the tank the highest point. I was able to
*really* fill the tank and when swiching on the ignition, the gauge shot
up to peg on "F". At that point it instantly started exhibiting the "full
scale twich" that you describe. After a couple of days of this, it decided
to just lay down at the "E" end until the tank gets below 1/4 full when
it rises lazily up to something approaching normal.

At first I thought I'd broken a wire in the sender so I yanked it out
of the tank and took a look. The sender worked perfectly. Now I'm
convinced it's the gauge. It only takes a few minutes to pull and
disassemble the pod. Just be reeeeeeely careful when you re-assemble it.

- - Jack

+-----------------------------+---------------------------------------------+
| Jack Hagerty                |                                             | 
| jack@domain.elided   |                                             |
| Robotic Midwives, Ltd.      |  Black holes are where God divided by zero. |
| Livermore, CA		      |             - Anon.                         |
|                             |                                             |
| (925) 455-1143 (voice/fax)  |                                             |
+-----------------------------+---------------------------------------------+
|        ARA #97, NAR #55105, LUNAR #002 / TRA #3943, Aero-PAC #168         |
+---------------------------------------------------------------------------+

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End of alfa-digest V7 #104
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