Hi all, just put a new sending unit in my 59 parisienne (thanks 4SPEED427) and the fuel gauge is reading higher than it should. I took 10 gallons out of a full 16 gallon tank to do the swap so it should have read under a half a tank when I installed the new unit. Instead it read around 7/8 of a tank. At least it's not buried full like it was before. Any ideas, faulty gauge, etc? I put a fresh ground wire from the sender to the body so that should be good but I used the original power wire as it apoears to be factory. Checked the pigtail with an ohm meter and it appears to be serviceable.
__________________
"If they don't find you handsome, they should at least find you handy" - Red Green
Did you check the resistance of the unit before installing? If I recall, it should have read about 5 ohms when empty, and 100 ohms when full.
I don't think there's anywhere to do calibrations.
Usually those Spectra senders are pretty good but maybe the float needs to be bent up a little bit? Bending it up should make the gauge reading lower with the same amount of fuel in the tank if my calculation is correct.
__________________
1966 Strato Chief 2 door, 427 4 speed, 45,000 original miles
1966 Grande Parisienne, 396 1 of 23 factory air cars
Did you check the resistance of the unit before installing? If I recall, it should have read about 5 ohms when empty, and 100 ohms when full. I don't think there's anywhere to do calibrations.
Of course not because that would have been the smart thing to do. Thought I might get lucky and all you have to do is spin the gauge. At least its easy to get out.
__________________
"If they don't find you handsome, they should at least find you handy" - Red Green
Usually those Spectra senders are pretty good but maybe the float needs to be bent up a little bit? Bending it up should make the gauge reading lower with the same amount of fuel in the tank if my calculation is correct.
Thanks for the tip, don't know if I would have thought of that. I'm going to run the tank empty and see if I can estimate just how much to bend it.
__________________
"If they don't find you handsome, they should at least find you handy" - Red Green
Hook it up out of the car to ground and power and then move the arm up and down and see how the gauge reacts. Spectra Premium is usually good quality, the ohm resistance of the sender varies over the model years. The shop manual has a good troubleshooting section on this IIRC.
__________________
63 Parisienne sport coupe (The Big GTO), black, maroon interior, 409 4 speed; former owner of a 59 El Camino, 63 Corvette SWC, 62 Chev Bel Air SC. 1963- Pontiac top selling car in Canada
Mahone Bay, NS Still not old enough to need an automatic
Hi all, just put a new sending unit in my 59 parisienne (thanks 4SPEED427) and the fuel gauge is reading higher than it should. I took 10 gallons out of a full 16 gallon tank to do the swap so it should have read under a half a tank when I installed the new unit. Instead it read around 7/8 of a tank. At least it's not buried full like it was before. Any ideas, faulty gauge, etc? I put a fresh ground wire from the sender to the body so that should be good but I used the original power wire as it apoears to be factory. Checked the pigtail with an ohm meter and it appears to be serviceable.
Put the gauge back in the tank to see where it is indicating on the dash.
Take the gauge out and bend the float a slight bit to accommodate for the amount of fuel in the tank.
Reinstall the gauge and check the dash for the reading. You may have to adjust the float a couple of times.
Better to have some fuel in the tank even when it reads empty.
