[V8Vairs] fuel sender

[Dave]

Just this weekend I was working on the senders in two of my cars. 

I also noticed that it took about 3 gallons before the fuel gauge needle began to move upward on the first fill. Through trial and error you can bend the rod on the float a little until you just hear that the float is hitting the bottom of the tank and then back it off a little. You don't want it actually rubbing on the bottom. That will lead to more accuracy on the amount of fuel remaining but you will get less resolution on the high side. After a tank top off it will take longer to begin seeing the needle fall. For my V8 I left the sender as it is since 3 gallons remaining is about 25 miles at the most. On my convertible with the stock engine I bent the float rod down a little. 

I opened the tank on the convertible since the gauge never read lower than 1/4 tank even when empty. On full sweep the sender was reading 34-125 ohms instead of 0-90 ohms. It turns out there is a very tiny piece of brass shim used to "zero" the gauge when it is assembled. If that piece slips out then the sender reads incorrectly. After fixing that it now read 0-90 ohms again and the gauge is back to normal operation.

Dave