fuel gauge

mike04232

I have a 04 232 captiva 5.0 with the bravo 3 . The fuel gauge reads fuel all the time . I took the a look at the sending unit .I moved the wire in the center and the fuel gauge dropped below empty .planning on replacing the sending or could it be something different.  Thanks for any help u guys can give me .

raybo3

Sounds like the float is stuck in the up position. Did you try tapping it?

212rowboat

raybo3 is on it, i'd wager...

floats are connected to an arm that either floats in an arc that is 90* from the pole (empty) or a few degrees from perpendicular of the pole (full)... or, they are a different design that has the float slide up and down the pole... either way, they both use a variable resistor to determine the position of that float... no resistance=full, no signal=empty...

the fact your gauge went to empty when you pulled the lead indicates the resistor is wide open, which makes it a sender problem 99.9% of the time.  that .01% would be a mismatch between gauge expectations of current and the sender not sending in that range (as in mismatched gauge-to-sender)...

have yo ever noticed the five screw plate that marries your sender to the tank?  It can only be screwed on in one position, and that's it.. otherwise, all the screw taps won't align... that is done so the float arm doesn't get caught on the tank or baffle, and will send proper reports through the sender about fuel level... hopefully, it has a cork gasket.... only use a cork gasket on those things..   

i tell you about the cork gasket in preparation to break it to you: you likely need a new sender/float... it ought not be too hard to get out and in in your 266... they are a 'standard' or 'universal' float/sender unit in terms of resistance, so, you can get one from a lot of places without worrying about mismatching. 

when you replace it- do yourself a favor and use a titch of glue to hold the CORK gasket to the tank before trying to align the five hole plate to the tank... aligning the plate is difficult enough, introducing another five hole matching gadget in between the tank and the plate (the cork gasket) can be frustrating... eliminate that before you experience that lil' emotion... :-)  

MarkB

If you took off the wire and it went to empty, the wire isn't the issue. It means you have the correct continuity to the fuel sending unit.  It means something is wrong with the sending unit itself, like the float is stuck.

rslumpff

Had similar problem. Changed gauge, bought new sending unit and finally what made the gauge accurate was to bend the sending arm up so it had to go down further to show full.  Now it works accurately.  Go figure.