Fuel Gauge

[<dawnanddan@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Greetings Alfisti,

Regarding the recent thread on fuel gauges let me tell you about the one 
in the 78 Spider I had.  It would register from full to between half and 
3/4ths, then it would just fall to empty.  Sometimes it would bounce up 
to half momentarily, but not very often.  The red "dangerously low level" 
light would function normally.  

What was happening was this:  The electric sensor part of the fuel sender 
is a series of windings which another strip of metal wipes against, 
otherwise known as a rheostat or variable resistor.  The windings ( very 
thin copper wire ) had a break right about halfway over.  They are way 
too thin to solder.  The low level light is a simple switch which is not 
part of the variable circuit.  

The only way I see to fix it is to get a new sender unit.  AR Ricambi has 
them ( sometimes ).

You also may want to check the float part of the sender.  My Duetto's 
sender had what looked like a painted cork float which looked pretty 
saturated.  The new one I have for it has a nice plastic float ( 
hopefully not gasoline permeable ! ).

Ciao for Now !!!

Dan Walker

68 Euro Duetto  - in resto
87 Milano Gold - great daily driver, averaging 24+ mpg

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