Hello all. My '90 has dual tanks like most of them did then, but the fuel gauge only reads for the rear. The truck will run fine off the front tank, but the gas gauge just sits at E. I jumped the wires on the switch to the fuel gauge and the rear read 1/4 of a tank like it did before and the front fell right back to E so the problem must be before the switch. My Haynes manual is little help. Does anyone know a good way to find the problem, possible causes, or what the ohms should be? Thanks in advance.

 

Look for loose or broken wires first. Make sure you have a good ground, clean the connections. It could be corrosion giving you a bad connection or it could be the sending unit, sorry I don't know the ohms.

Bob

 

Mine is exactly the same way. Front tank reads dead. When I first bought the truck it would read just over E and then as the tank became empty it would read E or below. Now it reads E all the time. My best guess was a sunken float. Never have bothered to check it out since I just run the front tank till empty and then I have the back tank to tell me how much gas I really have left.

 

A good way to check to see if it is the float or the gauge is diconnect the wire at the fuel tank. And ground it the frame with the key on. If the gauge is good it will read full. I hope this helps a little.

 

This is an interesting topic to me as well. My 94 F250 has the same problem with the front tank (no gauge reading) while the rear tank is accurate. I also noticed that during the past year or two, when it was warm out, it would read again, when cold, it would not. I theorized that the wires were heating up and making a connection in warm weather. When cold, they shrunk just enough to NOT make a connection. The truck has almost 130,000 miles on it and the past 4 years I have always switched front to back to front every fillup.

I managed to mess with (technical term) the connectors on the frame rail near the front tank and it seemed to fix it for several days. Could have been a fluke (or warm out) but eventually it went back to sporadic operation. Lately, I get no reading at all, but like I said, it has been operating like this for over a year and like the previous poster, it kept pumping gas so I haven't pursued it.

However, lately, it seems I don't have the pressure in that main tank like I do in the rear. When I press the accelerator slowly, it seems like it hesitates... when I switch to the rear tank, the hesitation goes away. Any suggestions... does anyone else think this is the pump too? I figure I'll have to replace both the sending unit and pump inside the tank since I have TWO problems now.

Any suggestions on how to best do this? I know some say drop the tank, others say lift the bed. Also, where does one recommend I get the parts themselves?

Thanks

1994 F250 5.8l RegCab/LongBed 4x4 Manual Tranny