Problem with Fuel Gauge...need advice

Hello all,

I recently had a new fuel pump put in my 90 4.0L XJ and my fuel gauge is not working. I took it back to the shop that installed and they supposedly checked it out with another gauge which worked so they thought it was my gauge.

I went to the junkyard and got 2 fuel gauges from a 90 and an 88 XJ. I pulled out my instrument cluster and installed them and nothing....the gauge goes all the way past Full to horizontal! I pulled the connector from the sending unit and it did not go to Full as it should, and then I read an Alldata that the harness wires #15 and 17 should read 0-88 ohms and it did. The only thing I can think now is that the plastic circuit board thing on the back of the cluster is bad.

I am thinking about taking it to the dealer but that could be $$$$$. I have also contemplated getting a whole cluster from another rig and trying that.

Any suggestions would be appreciated.

Thanks,

LTK

Reply to
ltkaknm
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Reply to
L.W.(Bill) Hughes III

Thanks BIll,

It seems lke the shop does want to do too much more with this fuel pump....I am not sure I am happy with their service.

Is it a relatively easy procedure to extract the fuel pump?

THanks,

LTK

L.W.(Bill) Hughes III wrote:

Reply to
ltkaknm

Thanks BIll,

It seems lke the shop does want to do too much more with this fuel pump....I am not sure I am happy with their service.

Is it a relatively easy procedure to extract the fuel pump?

THanks,

LTK

L.W.(Bill) Hughes III wrote:

Reply to
ltkaknm

Reply to
L.W.(Bill) Hughes III

You can get at the connection for the fuel gauge in the front of your gas tank. I would start there with a multimeter to see what is coming out of the tank sender and to make sure they hooked up the ground.

'I' think they screwed up. I don't buy the coincidence of the dash dying at the same time as they were messing with the sender.

Mike

86/00 CJ7 Laredo, 33x9.5 BFG Muds, 'glass nose to tail >
Reply to
Mike Romain

Not on his Bill. He has an AMC Jeep with the pump in the front of the tank. It took Chrysler to pull the drop the tank scam.

Mike

86/00 CJ7 Laredo, 33x9.5 BFG Muds, 'glass nose to tail >
Reply to
Mike Romain

Thanks Mike,

I found on another post that the polarity of the sender was changed in

1991 and even though the new one has the right part number and since the polarity has changed it will not work. The post said to take out the pump and reverse the wiring but it will not be accurate since the resistance is different.

Oh and if you recall I was having problems with stalling and bucking. I changed my spark plugs to Champions and most of the problems went away. It still sometimes cuts out but does not stall. When I took it to the shop to have them "fix" the gauge they said that there might be a short and it would need to get worse before they could diagnose it. I was overjoyed to hear that!

Thanks again for your help,

LTK

Mike Roma> Not on his Bill. He has an AMC Jeep with the pump in the front of the

Reply to
ltkaknm

If you are willing to pay to get it fixed go to a shop that specialized in automotive and truck electric systems. All large cities should have at least one.

If you have a firehouse nearby stop by and ask who does the electrical work on their rolling stock.

Reply to
billy ray

Well I did it! Went to the junkyard to do some research and found a number of fuel senders hanging out of old XJ'a and a couple still in the tank. removed three of them, 2 still had new looking pumps. I bought a sender and a complete set up for $49 and went home to test these that were both pulled from a 90 and an 88 XJ.

Success! The Fuel Gauge worked.

Now I needed to unisnstall mine and see what was up. Luckily the practice at the yard helped a ton!

As I am pulling it out I noticed that the plastic housing of the sender unit is disconnected from the fuel sender metal body. As I was extracting the whole unit from the tank the filter boot fell in the tank! Damn! Hands too big to get in fuel pump hole. Lower the tank to get it out.

Few hours later...after testing it a few times.....reinstalled and voila....gauge works!

Thanks for all of your advice,

LTK Edit/Delete Message billy ray wrote:

Reply to
ltkaknm

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