Cascade Crew

[DBL_TKE]

Yeah so finally, after many months, I have fixed my fuel gauge. Well actually my sending unit. Quite awhile ago I'd figured out that my sending unit was the culprit to my non working fuel gauge through some extensive use of the DVOM. Even though I knew what was wrong, it never got fixed because I didn't have to $300+ to pony up for a new one. However through a stroke of luck, my friend Cody bought and parted out an '83? Pontiac Firebird that had an LG4... and a working gas gauge. Not to mention I got some seat belt's from him, New plastics for the hatch interior, 36mm front sway bar, and best of all, a functional fuel sending unit, all for free.

Finally, I had some time to work on my car on Sunday. I took my sending unit out and actually figured out exactly what was wrong with it. inside the hinge to the float there is a metal contact and some tiny little brushes that it brushes against to send a signal through the wires and to the gauge. well, simply put, my contact was broken off. The reason why you need to get a new sending unit if it breaks is becuase it's not held in there by a clip of anything, it is held in there by a flared end of the metal. It took me a lot longer to fix it than I originally planned. At first glance I thought it was going to be a simple swap. Replace the fuel pump on the functional sending unit with my new one and swap that into my tank. Wrong. Apparently his sending had some small, but major differences. on the "in tank" portion of the TPI unit, the metal line that goes to the pump itself, tapers down to be maybe a 1/4 narrower. This along with the fact that the line was also about 2" shorter in length meant that it is impossible to just swap pumps and be good. The part that tapers down connects to what appears to be a type of in line filter, which is the reason for the shorter length. This is a big deal becuase there is a "holster" of a sort that holds the pump in place so everything has to be to exact length.

After deeming any idea of just swapping the float and associating hinge to my unit impossible, I figured the only way to make things work was to modify the unit out of the Firebird. So the first thing I did was cut off the tapered section of the fuel line from my old unit. Then I measured and removed via air saw, about 2" of the solid fuel line from the Firebird unit. Once this was completed I hick rigged the tapered line onto the Firebird unit by using some fuel injector hose and hose clamps to secure everything in place. There was also one last snag, and that was to cut and re splice the wires to the connector on the sending unit. but I managed to make it to the parts store before it closed so all was good. After everything was complete I simply connected all fuel lines and connected all wired and voilà, working fuel gauge.

Pics would have made this much easier to explain.

[fiveoformula]

good job, i think we all take that particular gauge for granted

[DBL_TKE]

you have no idea...