Fuel Gauge Sender.

[FalcoColumbarius]

Right, so I'm driving along a pleasant logging road with a friend when suddenly he says: "Hey look, a ditch!". So we go off exploring this network of ditches and at one point I'm driving up, what is basically a creek bed and at one point land on a big rock with my aft fuel tank. Damage is not that bad, the skid pan did it's job but I kinda bent the tank along with the the pan.

During this excursion we also went through a few deep puddles of water, mud and oily sludge.

Anyway, after a few days I noticed that my fuel gauge started working intermittently. Eventually it stopped working altogether. I'm thinking that it's more likely electrical than mechanical ~ as a/ the dent is on the inside side of the tank, where the fuel measuring device is on the outside side of the tank; 2/ by virtue of the intermittency itself I'm thinking dirty electrical connexion, perhaps from the sludgy puddles, but I am open to opinions.

Falco.

[Rattlenbang]

The wiring is on the side of the tank so best to start from there. Easy enough to short the leads and see if the gauge responds. But if not, it is entirely possible that a sharp bang on the tank broke an internal lead to the wiper itself. This is one of those things that you have to start exploring and eliminating components one by one. At least it packed it in, which is a lot better than chasing intermittent electrical problems.

[bosc]

My gauge did this last summer for no apparent reason. It would suddenly show no fuel in tank, then come back to life intermittently. I replaced the gauge itself on the gauge pod with the one from my parts van, and this solved the issue.

[FalcoColumbarius]

Fortunately, I log all my fuel ups and reset the trip meter at each top up, so I know roughly where I'm at with the kilometres. Also, the amber idiot light still works when I approach the sixty litre mark.

However there is an update: I gave her a bath with a chamois dry down and the gauge started working again, so I'm now really leaning to electrical. That or she's working to rule because I've neglected to give her the spa treatment she's so used to (princess). Perhaps it's a dirty connector ~ I've been looking for any crushed split loom but have not found any.

Falco.

[FalcoColumbarius]

Okay, I did what Rattlenbang suggested and started following the wires from the fuel tank. It was a short journey.
I apologize for the quality of the photograghs but I took them with my telephone.

Here's a picture to give our bearings. I'm lying under the sliding door step, head under the rear tyre when I took this picture:



The damaged wiring was right around the cable clamp near the transfer case, the green tape denotes that this ain't the first time.



When I removed the tape I discovered three wires: a yellow one; a yellow and green one; a black one. The black wire was severed, the yellow/green one was breached. The yellow one was fine.





The three wires were at one time in a black plastic casing, which has since broken down. This casing may have had some bearing on how the wires were damaged as the broken edges were stiff and edgy. I removed the this casing up to where it retained it's integrity.



I cut the breached wire, stripped back the the insolator, slid a shrink wrap tube over the wire, tied it back together, slid the tube back over the joint and heated it closed with my Bic lighter.



The black wire I went to strip and successfully cut it through. Bother! So I used a pink crimp-on connector instead and heat shrank the ends.



I taped it all up. Although I particularly like green, as it goes with the pearlessence in the paint job, I decided to go with yellow, for diesel.



Et voila!



Falco.