Gas guage mystery.

[Coosfaba]

Ok, I bought my 93 X back in November. The guy that sold it to me said that the gas guage never worked as long as he had the truck. It never worked for me either. It just stays on empty all the time. I'm thinking, just like most, that the float in the tank was breached from a pinhole from corrosion most likely and it filled with fuel.
The kit at Auto Zoo is $110. (sending unit with the pump combined). My mechanic wants $80 to drop the gas tank and do the install. Figure with tax around $200. Sounds fair to me.

My wife just called me on her cell and said that the guage is now working! reading a little over 1/4 tank and the needle floats back and forth a little depending on if she is driving uphill or downhill or level. Must have been a connection problem. I want to check it anyway. Where should I look first?

PS: The back power window didn't work either until 2 days ago. weird.

 

[little x]

I've got the same problem. My gauge only works once a month or so, so I know it's not the float. But I haven't messed with the wiring to see where connection issues could exist. If your a hands on person check out Burns thread on making an access panel to the tank, that way you never have to drop it, unless your replacing the tank itself.

 

[Coosfaba]

Thanks man, I appreciate the info. It's still working so far.

PS: I could not find that Burns thread that you were reffering to. There are a lot of Burns on here. Could you post the link here or direct me right to it? Thanks

 

[Coosfaba]

Found it! .... That's a cool trick. I can do that. Now if I can only keep from blowing myself up. Just kidding. It's not like AC electrical work. I know Just enough about that to be dangerous.

 

[ParkerRocker]

I had a similar issue with my tach, it only happened once, but i looked down when i was driving down the road and i was at ) RPMs. I thought maybe it was a a computer problem, and i restarted the engine. Works fine now. ABS has the sam problem, i get the ABS light on my dash after about 10 minutes, i reset the engine and it goes away for a bit.

So what do u think, computer or connection problem?

 

[Coosfaba]

Forget about it! Got in my truck today and the fuel gauge is not working again. It's pinned on E again. Must be an electrical connection or a faulty ground. If anyone knows about this, I would appreciate the info.

 

[Coosfaba]

I hope you don't think I'm nuts, but my wife and I just got back from Wal-Mart with the Explorer and the gas guage is working again. As Beaufort T. Justice would say... "uuufff!" We even put in gas and I left it running just to see and we could actually see the guage climbing upward as the gas went in the tank. So, it definately is not a false reading. At least I don't have to have the tank dropped. Probably a lose connection or a faulty ground like I said before. My wife said that she prayed the other day that the guage would work and now it does. I'm a believer.

 

[91exploreron37]

When my float went bad it would stay near the half mark just like it does when you turn the car off.

 

[Coosfaba]

When my float went bad it would stay near the half mark just like it does when you turn the car off.

That's not the case here. As I explained in my post earlier, it was always pinned on E, and now all of a sudden, it works normally. It can't be the float. Very strange.

 

[Coosfaba]

My gas guage is working corectly all the time now. And I almost threw away $200. Thank you God!

 

[bluexpy]

Wish I could say the same about mine.

When powered on, it'd pin at E. When it's turned off for at least a minute, it will slowly come up to 1/4 full until it gets power again, then it goes empty. I can't figure out if it's the float or electrical. Sigh.

 

[jij0226]

^mine just started that also. but it sat in my parents driveway for almost a year

 

[Coosfaba]

It's strange. I bought this truck in November and the guy I bought it from told me that he only had it for a year and seldom used it (He only used it to haul his small boat a couple of times), so basically this thing sat for a year unused. When I originally went to look at it, he had to charge the battery.
I paid $800. for it, got a rebuilt trans with a brand new torque converter for $780. on e-Bay, another $435. to have it installed (transfer case must be attached before install), and $70. for a good battery. That's it so far. It's got 193K mi., it's in good shape, the engine runs smooth as silk with a lot of pull on the road and in the woods, 4X4 works flawless, and the suspension is very tight with no noises. The sunroof is the original and does not leak a bit.
The things it still needs are: The passengers side electric window does not go down, but I can hear and see it move a bit. The rear drivers side window works on and off when it wants. The courtiousy front door lights that are built in the doors don't work and that's about it.
With that said, I have had this truck almost 6 months and I can tell that these are pretty good trucks and tougher than they look.
I was doing a cleaning job with my truck and this guy pulls up next to me with one just like mine, all dented up. He told me that his truck must be a good one to put up with the abuse that he gives it. He said it does everything that he needs it to do. I believe him, because he was huge, like a gorilla and he takes out his anger on his truck. 93 exploder, but it won't blow up! Amazing!

 

[arcblue]

Any answers to this mystery?

I'm glad to know it's not only my car.

One day, some half a decade ago, I think, my fuel gauge just fell to empty after starting the engine. It's stayed there ever since. I had my mechanic do some diagnostics, and said it would be a combination of replacing the fuel gauge in the cluster & the tank sender. He said I didn't even want to know how expensive that would be, so I just have lived with no fuel gauge.

After reading on the forum some years back, I figured the float in the tank that measures the fuel level was probably deteriorated & full of fuel, thus showing the empty reading on the gauge. I figured "someday" I'll get to dropping the tank & replacing the sender unit...but wasn't real excited about doing that job.

Then, a week ago, I glanced at the instrument panel and noticed the fuel gauge was working and (according to mileage) was at approximately the right reading at 3/4 tank. I thought it was a miracle and was so happy! That was the ONLY time it's worked in all those years!

The next time I drove the car, though (some hours later), the gauge slowly started dropping over a period of 10 minutes until it read "E".

The gauge hasn't worked since, but I've noticed on some days it reads higher on "E" than others. So this whole experience leads me to think it's an electrical problem....but where do I start testing? Any common failure points? I'm tending to think something is grounded out or corroded.

-AC

 

[boggs1227]

...just go to local yard and pull a guage out of the cluster for cheap (which i dought it's the case ....more likelly your sending unit )but with the guage you bought you can tell right off if its a $100-150 pump/sending unit thats failed .if it's the guage then you just bought your replacement part.also you could try to see if the electrical connector at the frame rail is makeing good contact and at the top of the tank .

if you have to buy another pump/sending unit ...make sure you buy a quality one witha a good warranty.i bought a cheap one and it failed 3 days after i installed it so went and bought a bosch pump (advance auto ) 30 bucks more but also comes witha lifetime warranty ...has not failed me yet .dont do what i did by saveing a little bit of money because the headache of takeing the tank off twice was a lesson in it's self .one more thing ...when you take your tank out thats a good time to flush and clean all of it inside and out .the other method by cutting a hole in the truck allows you to get to the sending unit easy but your cutting the metal and rust could start imo ....and also cleaning the tank out i would imagine is a lot harder to do rather than removeing it first.

 

[Coosfaba]

Mine was pinned on E for years, then all of a sudden it worked for 3 days, and now it's back on E. My friend who is a great mechanic, still says it's the float. They get a pinhole in them and they fill up with gas and sink. He has done many of these over the years, so he knows these quirky symptoms. I could have sworn it was the guage too, but I'm afraid I'll have to have him drop the tank. and do the install, and I might as well have him replace the sending unit, fuel pump and screen while he's at it. Might as well clean the tank too, before I have any problems with that.
I have another friend who works for AutoZoo and he says they have a kit that includes all that for $109.99, and that's without a discount. He says they never had a return on these kit's yet.

 

[boggs1227]

yeah the stock pump/sending unit i pulled the first time had a brass float i could see where it corosion had ate through the float.most likelly the pump is still good and i still have just in case i can't get a replacement bosch pump or whatever .the first pump( the cheap one) failed withen 3 days...it started out all right makeing the normal sounds but got worse about 10 times of starting the truck ...finally it started to sound like a hurt whale (really bad warblely sound) !

also when i cleaned the tank out i found lots of fine grit sand like material in there not alot mind you but enough to warrant a good cleaning .plus one good thing about takeing out the tank was the out side had rocks caught under the skid plate right up against the tank it's self.....not to good to have a knife against a plastic fuel cell !

 

[beauboy]

How's your oil pressure gage working? Have you noticed anything screwy with it? Your fuel gage and oil pressure gage are contained in the same module. They share a common ground. You can chase a fuel gage problem all day or take boggs' advice and pull a module from a "you-pull-it" yard (if the oil gage is suspect also).

Just my two cents.