1. Home
  2. Land Rover 4WD vehicles
  3. OT - marine fuel gauge

OT - marine fuel gauge

On the assumption that these work on the same principles as a Landy fuel gauge (boat has a 12v system similar to a car's) ...

The gauge reads "full" as soon as I turn on the ignition and never varies. There is a 12v+ supply to the gauge and an earth. I assume that the earth is through the sender whcih is some kind of variable resistor. Is there any way of checking whether the fault is in the gauge, the wiring or the sender, working at the gauge end of things? I only ask because the gauge and about a foot of wiring are quite get-attable, but the rest of the wiring and sender require a MAJOR amount of dismantling (seats, decks - about 2 hours' worth) before they can be examined. I have a digital multimeter and can use it, despite the evidence of a previous post ;-) My guess is that there is a short to earth between the gauge and sender, but the Rule of Tim says that someone here will know far better than I.

TIA

Reply to
Richard Brookman
Loading thread data ...

Twas Sun, 9 May 2004 09:49:09 +0000 (UTC) when "Richard Brookman" put finger to keyboard producing:

you think that it goes to earth via a sender, yet it reads full all the time? I'd suspect it's earthing early, check either continuity (resistance) between the earth from the sender at the guage (disconnected from the guage) and a known good earth or the voltage between live and sneder earth line. best if your tank is not full ;o)

Also get to the sender if you can and see what's what there.

if you have a big resistor lying around or a variable one you could apply a varying voltage to the guage and if the needle moves accordingly then it's probably ok.

if you can remove the sender then measure it's resistance while moving the float and it should vary.

or maybe the earth at the guage is straight to earth, and the live is a fixed feed, and the guage was installed by a muppet.

Regards. Mark.(AKA, Mr.Nice.)

Reply to
Mr.Nice.

If no-one here can help you, try here but fill in your profile properly or you may not get an answer:

formatting link

Reply to
Exit

This is a symptom of having the wires the wrong way round - try swapping them.

Worth a try. HTH

Floatything

Reply to
Chris

Thanks for the common sense, chaps. I bit the bullet and took up all the cockpit floor, and spent most of Sunday *rse-upwards checking the wiring. Turns out the gauge was wired up wrong. The gauge has 3 terminals (apart from the illuminator lamp) marked +, - and G. The + is to battery +ve, the G to the sender and the - seems to be redundant. Previous owner had (sort-of understandably) wired the - to earth and this was causing the problem. Once this was disconnected, I could get the gauge to go from full to empty by connecting and disconnecting the sender wire. The sender was open-circuit, but I traced this to a broken solder joint which looks fixable.

Mark - you win a coconut for correctly using the word "muppet" in your response.

Thanks for the help.

Reply to
Richard Brookman

Twas Mon, 10 May 2004 16:41:54 +0000 (UTC) when "Richard Brookman" put finger to keyboard producing:

:o)

Glad you sorted it.

Regards. Mark.(AKA, Mr.Nice.)

Reply to
Mr.Nice.

MotorsForum website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.