Gremlins in the Gauges

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kit - 17 Apr 2006 16:17 GMT

Just bought a 1998 3.0L Plymouth Voyager. The gas gauge showed that
the tank was about 1/4 full, so I went to the gas station and filled up
the tank. When I restarted the car, the gas gauge registered dead
empty and the Low Fuel warning light came on and the dash alarm dinged
once.
After a short drive, I stopped and parked the car. On restarting the
car, the gas guage read full, and all appeared normal. But... when I
started to drive, the Low Fuel warning light came on and the alarm
dinged once... then this happened again, and again, and again.
Every couple of blocks, the light comes on and the alarm dings once.
After driving enough to reduce the gas to about 3/4 thank, the light
and alarm stopped.
What the #$%^& is going on??
Kit

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N8N - 17 Apr 2006 16:30 GMT

> Just bought a 1998 3.0L Plymouth Voyager. The gas gauge showed that
> the tank was about 1/4 full, so I went to the gas station and filled up
[quoted text clipped - 10 lines]
> What the #$%^& is going on??
> Kit

sounds to me like there is a dead spot on the little resistance film in
your fuel level sender, depending on how difficult it is to get to and
how expensive it is, you may want to just replace it, or else pull it
and slap a multimeter on it and see if the resistance changes smoothly
as you move the float through its full range. I am pretty sure you
will find that this is your problem.

good luck,

nate

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JM - 17 Apr 2006 17:18 GMT

> Just bought a 1998 3.0L Plymouth Voyager. The gas gauge showed that
> the tank was about 1/4 full, so I went to the gas station and filled up
> the tank. When I restarted the car, the gas gauge registered dead
> empty and the Low Fuel warning light came on and the dash alarm dinged
> once.

I had something similar happen to my old Chev Celebrity. After only being
able to afford 1/2 tank of gas at a time, I filled it up one day and the
gauge would go back and forth from full to empty at random. It cleared up
after a while, I assumed it was just that that area of the gauge sensor
hadn't seen contact in a while and had gotten a littly dirty.

Your problem may clear up after a few fillups.

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osbornauto@gmail.com - 17 Apr 2006 18:22 GMT

Your problem could also be in the float itself. The float is a small
plastic or brass bubble in the tank. They sometimes leak, fill up with
gas and then just move around up and down changing what your gauge
says. Either way, you need to pull the unit out of the tank to test it.

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