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Hi everyone. My fuel gage stopped working about 2 years ago in my 61 F-100, and I finally got around to getting a sending unit for it. It's an Auto Metal Direct, which ran me about $50. I put it in and even with a full tank, it only reads to about 3 quarters of a tank. I took it out and tried moving the arm by hand, and it's the same. If the fuel drops a little bit, it reads less than a quarter or empty. I checked the ground, and it was good. I even tried running a new ground, and that didn't help either. The test light lit up when I tried that as well, so it's getting power. Was just wanting to know thoughts before I try and take it back to return it to NAPA.
Young man. Here are a couple of pages from a Ford shop manual. If you are unable to use this in combination with a couple of resistors and your multi meter I suggest you find someone who can. Disregard the radio choke and 8.5-ohm resistor in the diagram they were only used on vehicles with printed circuit dash panels. Yours isn't.
Also the Rotunda gauge tester isn't needed. A multi meter will suffice.
Other option would be to just buy another new sender and put it in. Really sounds to me like the one you got is defective. If Summit won't take it back, I'd deal with someone else going forward.
With what you are showing on the meter and what the above image of the page in the manual states for the ohms. You should show full at full or just a hair under. But when your tank is empty, you "might" be showing about 1/8th on the gauge.
Hook up the gauge to the sender and ground the sender. Move the float to the down/empty position. Turn key on and let us know what the gauge shows for empty. I really want to know.
BTW: thanks for doing this. It refreshes my memory on how to read ohms.
Sender is no good, send it back. Where you are reading 44.7 it should be 60-86, most of the ones I have checked car or truck were mid 70's at the empty position.
There is nothing more frustrating than after following proper troubleshooting procedures, problems still persist after changing out parts with new. I'm no mechanic and will not profess to be one, however when I know my troubleshooting is solid I will without hesitation blame the new part when things don't go right. I've had this conversation with others that I do depend on for their knowledge and the conclusions are the same- New parts are crap! Seems it's cheaper for these companies to take endless returns than to make quality stuff. My 2 suggestions to anyone/everyone is as follows: 1) Don't just throw parts at a problem. Learn good, solid troubleshooting procedures and be confident in your findings. Don't let a new part cast doubt on what you know to be true. 2) Whenever possible search for nos parts first. If not possible, used, good parts should be your second choice. I've wasted countless hrs/money prior to accepting this myself. If you can prove the new part is bad then you are better for it and have inadvertantly improved your troubleshooting skills, If not, I guarantee that the bonehead at the parts place knew from the get-go that odds were you'd be back because the part they sold you was probably %$#%^*
This concludes my rant. I reserve the right to revisit this rant in the event this topic comes up any time in the near or distant future or at any time I just feel like ranting.
Carry on.
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