2002 Explorer XLT fuel guage failure. | Ford Explorer Forums - Serious Explorations

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2002 Explorer XLT fuel guage failure.

dean79

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Hey all, I am new here and any help would be GREATLY appreciated. My wife turned her explorer off last night and had 1/8 tank of fuel reading on her guage. This AM she started the truck and it read empty with the fuel light on. She put 10 gallons fuel in it and proceeded to go to work, but the fuel guage is still on empty and the low fuel light on. Does anyone know what could cause this>? I read here about faulty floats, and I sure hope its something else as Ford says the float is not replacable on that pump, the whole unit only for 450 bucks.

Again, any help would be greatly appreciated!!
 



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Welcome to this forum! I've moved your thread to the stock 2002-2005 section. The float is sold separately. Either they didn't know the part number or they wanted to make money selling you the whole float assembly. Check # 23 in my list of useful threads for more information.
 






Welcome to this forum! I've moved your thread to the stock 2002-2005 section. The float is sold separately. Either they didn't know the part number or they wanted to make money selling you the whole float assembly. Check # 23 in my list of useful threads for more information.


They asked for my serial number because they said some come seperate, some do not? Do you think the float would be the culprit, and if so, I have no problem pulling the tank, but are there any special disconnect tools?

Thanks, you guys are lifesavers!
 






Ah man why does the fuel system gotta always have probs :p lol
Good luck, hopefully its a zero dollar fix man :D
 












Could be the float, could be the wiring. I've seen units chafe wires in two or corrosion cause no reading. If your going to go ahead and drop the tank, then before buying a new sending unit, check the connector on the sending unit. Measure resistance across pins 5 and 8. When moving the float arm the resistance should change smoothly. I think the full to empty range is 10 ohms to 180 ohms, but don't quote me on that. At any rate, if you get a similar resistance reading then it's likely in the harness not the unit. Good luck and have fun.
 






Could be the float, could be the wiring. I've seen units chafe wires in two or corrosion cause no reading. If your going to go ahead and drop the tank, then before buying a new sending unit, check the connector on the sending unit. Measure resistance across pins 5 and 8. When moving the float arm the resistance should change smoothly. I think the full to empty range is 10 ohms to 180 ohms, but don't quote me on that. At any rate, if you get a similar resistance reading then it's likely in the harness not the unit. Good luck and have fun.

Thanks, the electrical is all greek to me, but I do have an ohms meter so likely could figure it out. Do you mean chafe te wires on the outside of the tank or inside? I have called every parts place here and all say no sending unit, pump assembly only for 450 bucks! Does anyone know if you can just get a sending unit for an '02?
 






A new twist hopefully something someone can help me with. I picked the truck up to work on, drove over some railroad tracks, now it works fine?????? She had nearly run it out of gas, maybe the float got stuck at empty? Also, it was not the fuel light that was on, it was the check gauges light. Just curious if I might be in the clear, or if i should still tear out the fuel tank and look for a bigger problem????
 






Id honeslty just let it go for now, I would safely say that the float just got stuck or something; which is what I previously thought, but didnt know if people would think that was ridiculous or something lol
 






fuel gauge misbehavior

Within the last year my 2002 fuel gauge didn't function correctly. The first time when I filled the tank, the gauge only read 1/2 full. Upon the next startup it showed full. The next time, some months later, the same thing happened on fill up. But it took a couple of starts and stops (and bumps I suppose) before it corrected itself. I've filled it up a number of times since then without malfunctions. Probably a Ford undocumented feature as we use to say in the IT business.
 






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