Fuel Guage and Sending unit.

[EricN]

If anyone is interested, I was at Princess Auto today and they have the fuel gauges and sending unit to match on sale for $10 each piece. I bought a sending unit and modified it to work with the Deli gauge.

[Adam]

Wow, too bad there isn't a Princess auto on the island. Opps, never mind, they are available online, thanks for the heads up.

[Adam]

Hey Eric, I picked up the fuel gauge and sending unit from Princess Auto as well. Have you got the sending unit hooked up to your Deli gauge? How difficult was that to do?

[EricN]

Yup, works awsome. It isnt hard at all, you just need a voltmeter and some patience. You unwind the resist wire and then re wind it to about 120ohms. If you are coming out this way on Sunday, give me a rough idea on time and bring the sending unit I can help you with it if you arent sure.
But basically- Swing the arm, mark on the fibre board where the swing ends. Pull the unit apart, unwind the wire, start over. The first few sets after the bolt you can wind touching so that the resistance stays low. Then I found if I basically spaced it as close as I could without letting them touch, it worked out about right. Just make sure you keep the wire tight as you wind. When you are done, make sure that the 120 Ohms is when it is empty (+ or - 10 will be fine). Full should be close to 3 ish.

[Adam]

Finally found the time to rewind the resistance wire to a range of 125 Ohms empty and 5 Ohms full. Thanks for the help, it was easier than I feared. Now I just have to wire it to the stock gauge. I guess I have to wire both to the toggle switch first. Time to take apart the dash again.

[EricN]

You don't need to open the dash at all. You just need access to your pollack valve wiring and to the big grey connector in your battery compartment. I will draw you a diagram and write some more specific instructions later today.

[Adam]

Oh yeah, I remember reading something about using some of those other wires to connect up the sending unit to the gauge. Found the diagram. Looks like wires A, B & C hook up to the Veg Fuel Sender, the fuel gauge, and the Diesel Fuel Sender respectively (my D wire is hooked up to my diesel tank and my E wire is running to the WVO). I guess I still have to root around in the dash looking for the stock sending unit wire, or is there an easier spot to intercept it?

[EricN]

It sounds like you know what you are talking about and this is probably just a misread but I would say A and C are to the sending units and B is to the gauge.
Now the best part, the wire from the fuel sending unit to the gauge is the big flat grey connector in the battery compartment (if you imagine sitting in the seat, it would be to the left front of the battery, unless the dual battery system changes it, but unlikely). You will see the harness coming inside from the area you mounted the vegmax. The wire is yellow with a blue (looks blue) trace. If you are looking at the connector on the face that has the little release button for separating it, you will see the yellow/blue wire. It is the first one to the right of middle. I followed mine up as far as I could go to cut it but whatever. Cut that wire, the side that heads outside is to the fuel tanks, the other one is to the gauge, connect them to the pollack as required. Then just run your own wire from your fuel sending unit to the pollack and you are laughing. If you need more specific help let me know but I suspect you have it figured out.

[Adam]

Alrighty, before I start ripping apart these brittle wire clusters maybe I should double check with you which area I should be concentrating on.

I took off the wire cluster on the left of the image and was going to crack it open (literally). Is this were I should be looking for the sending unit wire?

[EricN]

This is where mine is. The red circle is the general area you should see the connector, the red arrow is pointing to what I think is a small piece of the harness, the connector should be no more than a couple inches up from there. The red line is the way the harness is routed after the connector.
I am going to tape my digital camera back together (wife dropped it) and take another pic of the connector if you still cant find it. Those batteries sure eat alot of space, which is why I think it is alot harder to find on yours.

[EricN]

Ha, brain fade. I have a pic of it already, red circle. This is a pic of the wrong side though. If I were to flip it, I could show you the exact wire too.

[Adam]

OK, I found the fuel gauge wire in the engine bay just as you described, the yellow/blue wire, first one to the right of middle on the connector. What I ended up doing, which might have been a mistake was cut the wire below and above the connector, sending the bottom line to the 'A' or 'C' wire on the Pollack (still figuring out which I need to use for the diesel tank, tried both) and directed the wire above the connector to 'B' Pollack wire for the fuel gauge. Doesn't work though, I'm worried that there might be some sort of power supply or grounding in the connector that I have now bypassed, or that one of the connections I made isn't good. One of the problems is that I can't test my connections until I get the batteries hooked up ad in place, at which point it is too late to redo the connections.

I know I've got the correct gauge wire and the connection is good because when I apply voltage to it the gauge needle moves. Pretty sure I have the correct sending unit wire to, it looks exactly like the fuel gauge wire and it is in the same position on the bottom end of the connector. I'll do some more trouble shooting later in the week, I'm thinking that I need to pull the batteries again and rewire the bottom connection back to the plastic connector and use the cut wire on top for both gauge and the sending port on the Pollack.

Any other suggestions?

[EricN]

The wire is grounded, not powered. The connector is nothing,just a place for them to meet. I wouldn't have done it the way you did but that is only a personal preference thing. Since you have the batteries out and it sounds like you have the wires connected properly, use jumper cables to connect the battery to their terminals. That way you can test it and the batteries are out of the way. If you touch the yellow wire to ground (the one on the gauge side), you should see the gauge go full.
Also, make sure the wiring diagram for the pollack is correct. Put your ohm meter on the b terminal and see which one has continuity when you are on diesel, then flick your switch to veggie (I dont know if you need to have yours warmed up or not or if it will just switch when you flip the toggle) and make sure that b is still the main terminal and it is now joined with the different one this time. If that checks out, you should be able to connect the bottom yellow wire to a or c, the top wire to b and the veggie sender to a or c and have your gauge work.
My only real concern is that you talked about putting power to the gauge. I hope this doesnt mean you applied 12v to that wire. That wire is a ground. I dont think that will end well.

[Adam]

I took a look at it again, looks like the same problem I have with all my wiring, a loose connection. Nice to know that grounding can be used to test the gauge wiring. Turns out that applying voltage for a second to the gauge didn't fry it. My good luck I guess. Now I just have to install the WVO sending unit and get that wired up.

[Adam]

OK, I'm not really sure on the wiring for the sending unit. I've hooked up the Pollack to the top of the sending unit, now do I need to ground it?