Time to drop the tank?

[parris001]

My '94 Explorer has an erratic acting fuel level gauge lately. When you first start it the level will show pretty close to accurate. But after a few miles it always shows empty. And I was noticing lately when I would fill it up it takes FOREVER for the needle to finally recover to the full mark. I'm pretty sure that when my daughter had this thing, her husband had a fuel pump put in it. How bad is this tank to drop? Is there a sticky or a video anywhere? No chance there's an access panel is there?

 

[2stroke]

On a first gen, I would hope he didn't drop the tank. It is a big deal. There is a very easy way to change the fuel pump. You cut an access panel under the rear seat on the drivers side. I would hope that he had done that, and there is still an access panel. Otherwise he went through 20x more work than was needed, and probably spent a lot more than just on a fuel pump.

 

[parris001]

Is it clearly marked where to cut? And the piece that lays back down isn't too hacked?

 

[2stroke]

Its very easy to do, I used an angle grinder. I would have to find you the picture, but no, its not marked. Once cut out, I put some tabs on it so I could just screw it back down to cover the hole, and silicone sealed the edges. Like I said, hopefully you can pull the seat out and find that your son in law did the same thing. I'll do some searching later to see if I can find you the picture. If he didn't do a fuel pump, then you might run into some problems depending on how bad they salt the roads by you. For me, the whole top of the sending unit, and especially the retaining ring were just gone. I ended up just breaking the ring off, and buying a whole new sending unit. If it was done recently, you should be able to easily pop it off.

 

[2stroke]

Here is a link to a step by step on how to cut the access panel.

http://www.explorerforum.com/forums/showthread.php?t=182160

 

[parris001]

Thanks man. You've been a great help!!!!

 

[2stroke]

Don't cut too deep, and keep a fire extinguisher near by. Its about 2" to the tank under the body, so its not too big of a deal. Compared to dropping the whole tank, its a cake walk. Good luck, I hope it works out. My aftermarket sending unit also caused a weird fuel gauge. I just never cared to fix it.