eratic fuel gauge

[gavs20v]

The fuel gauge is playing up on my 93 s2 avant, below half full it drops straight to empty and the little fuel pump appears on the dash, above half way and it works fine. Any ideas? thought it might be the sender in the tank not making contact as it moves up and down the metal strip.
Cheers
Gav

[rotoryboy]

Hi Matey, You'll find that if you remove the instrument cluster, on the back of the fuel gauge you will find a wire broken. Solder the wire, and it will be back to normal.

Look at post 12 in
here
for the photo's

HTH

[Sidspud]

Its not the gauge thats faulty, but the sender. The photos in post 12 are of the sender unit.

The wire breaks and when the tank is full it still makes contact, but once it hits a certain level, it loses contact and the sender reports zero reading - or empty.

Either solder in a new wire or buy a new sender for under £30. The whole job should take under an hour. Try and do it with low fuel level though as it gets a bit whiffy. Easier said than done when you don't know how much is in the tank!

[rotoryboy]

OOps sorry mate. I saw the VDO and thought it was the cluster

[gavs20v]

New sender it is then, fingers crossed!
Nice one
Gav

[horvathg]

Mine was doing a similar trick with me and it was a loose contact at the back of the instrument table, where the stabilisator transistor is sitting.