Fuel Guage

[Weatherman]

About one year ago, the gas guage on my father's 1991 explorer EB quit
working and remains stuck in the full position. Recently, the guage on my
1991 XL has done the same thing. It seems odd that both explorers from the
same year would do this, without it being a problem common to others. Has
anyone else run across this problem? If so, what part of the unit is
responsible for it and what is the amount of work involved? I have seen a few other message boards and the newsgroup post this question, but I have yet to see a response to any of these.

 

[DaveCXLT]

Same problem here, Weatherman. Stuck just recently on my 91 XLT. Anyone have any ideas? I don't really care about it, it is a bit annoying , though.

 

[Weatherman]

*** From Dr. Bob ***

There's a sender in the tank that sometimes sticks or fails. Common
failure has the gauge work part of the time, then drop to zero below a
certain level in the tank.

To change the sender, you'll need to drain and remove the gas tank.
The sender attaches to the fuel pump bracket inside the tank, so that
whole thing needs to come out of the tank. The sender I think is
available as a service part from Ford, and attaches with a couple
screws and wire connections once the fuel pump assembly is out of the
tank.

 

[DanN]

While you've got the fuel tank dropped out it will only be the cost of a towing bill to go ahead and put a fresh fuel pump in. And while you've got the whole works out on the floor changing that sending unit it only takes a few more min. In fact if you haven't bought the sending unit yet, you can get the whole drop in assembly (sending unit, float, and pump) from any of the parts stores.

Good Luck
Dan

 

[explorerjoe]

Fuel Gauge

There is a possible third problem. I have a 94 X and the fuel gauge read empty 95% of the time. I have had similar problems with much older cars and the problem was always the sending unit. I dropped the tank and checked the sendiong unit and it was fried, it read eratic unless it was a empty. I wanted a new fuel pump assy anyhow since mine had 90k. No luck. I puled the gauge cluster, checked all the gauges and didn't see anything out of the ordinary, but it has 3 wires running to it. One power, the groung and one labeld Signal, similar to the oil and temp gauge. However, it turns out the signal comes from that little printed circuit board on back of the cluster. I noticed that with different fuel levels in the tank, my readings at the three gauge attach points remained constant (Ford wants $300 for a new fuel gauge, I wanted to be sure). I recently came across a Ford Tech, he said if the new sending unit didn't fix the problem, I had to replace the entire cluster, anyhow, new card from a used cluster, fixed it..