Bad fuel guage??

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Red Drag0n - 30 Mar 2006 14:53 GMT

I have a 91 Ford Thunderbird LX 5.0 V8 and my gas guage reads over
full. Now it doesn't matter if the tank is empty or full, the guage
still reads the same. How do i go about fixing this? I checked the
fuses and none are blown. I'm thinking it's the sending unit, but i
highly doubt one of those can die overnight.

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Sharon K.Cooke - 30 Mar 2006 15:27 GMT

> I have a 91 Ford Thunderbird LX 5.0 V8 and my gas guage reads over
> full. Now it doesn't matter if the tank is empty or full, the guage
> still reads the same. How do i go about fixing this? I checked the
> fuses and none are blown. I'm thinking it's the sending unit, but i
> highly doubt one of those can die overnight.

Actually, a sender can die at any time. Sounds like you have a sticking float in
the tank OR a pinched sender wire. Pull the sender wire connection from the tank
to check. If the gauge needle falls, it's the sender in the tank. If the gauge
needle doesn't fall, it's a pinched sender wire between the tank & gauge that's
forcing a 100% ground.

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Red Drag0n - 02 Apr 2006 06:24 GMT

>Sharon K.Cooke wrote:
>
[quoted text clipped - 3 lines]
> needle doesn't fall, it's a pinched sender wire between the tank & gauge that's
> forcing a 100% ground.

Well, found out that the wires (more than 1, 4 to be exact) go from the
tank to inside the car. Checked them all the way to the dashboard, and
none of them broken, kinked or frayed. Then i looked into the dash and
realized that the instrument panel for the guages are all electric. No
cables other than 2 plugs. I then procedded to rip apart the cluster
and check the fuel guage itself. Turns out that the gas guage is dying.
The copper wire and all of it's lovely little doings has caused the pin
to either rust or just become slow. I have to spin the guage from side
to side to loosen it up so it can get a proper reading. Now i have a
guage that's on it's last legs but at least with a little coaxing, it
will tell me how much gas i have in the car now. Hopefully soon i can
get a new guage and the problem will be finished.

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