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I put a new gas tank and a new sending unit on my 82 f100 stepside I filled it up and it only went to half a tank on the gas gauge! What is the best way to get the gauge workin correctly? I hate not having a accurate gas gauge.any help will be greatly apparicated. Thank you
Sounds like you got the wrong sending unit. There are many different ones and it is very easy to get the wrong one. To make sure your gauges are working right, ground the end that goes to the sending unit and your gauge should swing past Full. (The reason is that at full the sending unit is to give ~10 ohms, and your ground gave essential 0 ohms, so the gauge reads past Full.) If that works then you have the wrong sending unit or didn't get the tank full.
I have found that the hollow brass float used on the sending units tend to leak (fill with gas) and that makes the float heavy so the gage shows the tank is not full when it actually is. I changed the float twice already (it just snaps onto the end of the float arm - and it is sold separately so you don't have to buy the entire float/gage assembly).
My original sending unit had the brass bowl the new unit has a black rectangular flat unit, so I'm thinking I have the wrong sending unit.my old sending unit has a hole in it so I should take the new unit back( if possible) and get the original brass float. It is driving me crazy tryin to figure this out!
Ford had a huge variety of senders that varied by wheelbase, size of tank, middle tank vs rear, etc. But Autozone shows that one for 120 different trucks in our years. Hard to believe it would fit that many correctly when Ford's units didn't.
I would pull it and see if it will run your gauge from empty to full - but you will have to ground the unit to get it to work. If not, take it back. If it does, maybe the arm has to be adjusted to get the float up to the top. But before bending it I'd ask Autozone.