Looking at having to deal with a fuel tank or two on my truck, and I have a few questions.

First of all, I am going to have to replace the fuel level sender on the forward tank (I have a dual tank truck) as it has stopped working completely. An older friend has commented that the IDIs of this body style had a forward tank where the sender/strainer/etc could be removed and serviced without removing the bed or dropping the tank. Is this the case with my 95 truck?

Second, I seem to run out around a quarter tank indicated in the rear tank. In other vehicles I've had this would seem to indicate a problem with the in-tank pickup or sock, and I have seen the posts in the archives about the 'showerhead' pickup. It could also be the hose that connects the showerhead to the pickup hardline - my question is can this be replaced by any sort of bulk hose, or will diesel rapidly dissolve it? Would I be better off ordering the hose from Ford?

Third, if there's crap inside my tanks, like sediment, what should be used to rinse it out after all the fuel is drained from it? With gasoline vehicles, I've used alcohol as a finishing rinse to clean out any detergent residues, but I don't know what diesels will do with any alcohol residue that might be left in the tank.

Thanks for the help.

 

I've _heard_ you can reach the sender for the front tank with it in place, but the challenge will be getting the lock ring off. You generally pound it off with a hammer and punch, and you end up destroying it. I don't see how you can get a hammer and punch up in there.

Does the gauge read full or empty on the front tank? Have you tried disconnecting the electrical connector for that sender on the frame?

Rear tank - the showerhead attaches directly to the hard line. You can put a piece of diesel fuel hose on the hard line long enough to reach the bottom of the tank, but the showerhead is in the $20 range on Amazon.

Dunno what to tell you about cleaning the tank. Every time I've worked on one, it's to replace it after it rusted out.

 

There's a lock ring wrench one can get for about $12.

Buy OTC Fuel Tank Lock Ring Wrench for Ford OTC4624 at Advance Auto Parts

I don't mind buying something like that if it saves me the labor of dropping the tank or lifting off the bed. Think this might work?

The gauge reads empty when that tank is selected no matter how much fuel is actually in it. I have not unplugged the connector but I did check to make sure it was actually plugged in.

OK, so it's just attached directly with no hose? Pictures I had seen seemed to show a hose segment - how is the showerhead retained on the hard line?

Thanks.

 

Question is, can you get that lock ring tool on there and have enough room to turn it with the tank in place? I have no idea. It'll probably still destroy the lock ring, but it might just fit.

The showerhead just presses on to the end of the hard line. Showerhead: . Here's how it looks on the hard line: - that one's for a different vehicle, but it looks similar.

 

I've got the same dead sender in my front tank. and I just replaced that tank so my lock-ring is brand new. i think in my case, i killed my float by riding around with the tank dead empty for a while. i unplugged the sender at the frame rail out of curiosity, then went and turned the key to on - that gauge needle shot up so far and fast, it scared me! when the tank is empty, the sender resistence is low. when the tank is full, it is relatively high (like 30kOhms if i recall). with the sender unplugged, the resistance is infinite and since the guage is just a voltmeter in a divider circuit, it completely maxes it out. i turned the key off before the needle stopped moving, but it was WAAAAY past F already and i didn't want to damage anything.

then, i climbed under the truck intending to remove the sender, since i had read that it can be done with the tank in the truck. the weather was nice that day and i was on dry, level pavement. even so, i took one look at the setup and said to myself that I'd rather drive by mileage for a while more than deal with what looked like a pain in the rear of a job. i have plans for a bed swap soon, so i'll do my sender then. if you want to get yours done, you may think about loosening up the support straps - or even temporarily replacing their hardware with some threaded rod - just to angle the tank downward a bit more.

as for the showerhead, nope, no hose between it and the hardline. its just a pressfit onto the end of the hardline - which is probably where its cracked, causing it to suck up air at the ~1/4 tank level.

 

Yep. Or it just broke slap off. That was the case on three of the last four tanks I messed with.

For the lock ring, I've had good luck using a flat head screwdriver and moving it around the tabs of the lock ring giving each small bumps until it came loose. But I also don't have the whole salted road corrosion thing to deal with either.

 

The best showerhead fix I saw was posted in the IDI section. It was a short pice of 3/8 tube (brake line or copper) and a tube compression union. Measure the depth of the shower head for the tube length, sllip the compression union onto the tube and the sending unit and tighten down. A common fix on the old IDIs was a short piece of fuel hose clamped to where the shower head goes, with a V cut into lthe loose end so it will not suck down to the tank bottom.

 

I've had good luck using ratchet straps to lower or raise a heavy or too full tank or just supporting it lower than loose mount straps allow. You might need two straps in sequence to raise or lower a long distance. And be careful what you are pulling on or across and possibly pinching. Not my trick, read it somewhere around here.

 

'maybe' you can drop the tank down enough on the front tank to get the sending unit out. You might just be lucky and the floats are full in the front and partially full in the rear. You hope so anyway, the sending units are very scarce and expensive!!!!

 

I managed to track down a front tank sender NIB on eBay some months ago and it's been waiting on my shelf for install.