Fuel Gauge Inaccuracy

[Ol_Girl_58]

I tell you what, must be the year for things in the FC to stuff up...or maybe I just haven't noticed it before.

The fuel gauge in my FC isn't reading the fuel level correctly. I.e. When I fill up, the car shows a full tank. A few kilometres down the gauge reads half, then empty, half, empty, full...

I realise fuel gauges are horribly inaccurate but this is ridiculous. Just wondering if somebody has experienced this before, and has diagnosed and remedied the problem.

Regards,

Josh  

[robbzfc58]

josh    i was having similar problems.  it was the connection on the tank...start there
also check the earth on the fuel gauge behind the dash
good luck

[fcfromscratch]

Hi Josh,

me too....I had the dash panel off for speedo repairs and must've loosened the wire on one of the terminals on the gauge back.

a fuel gauge that worked perfectly, all of a sudden did the same sort of thing that you describe.

when I put the repaired speedo back in, I undid the nuts on the terminals of the gauge, cleaned them and re did them....and it came back to working properly...

never had a problem with the sender unit...though I know many do......

cheers...Brad

[chesoir]

This begs a question Ol Girl. Have you sorted out the slow starting trouble ?? Being that the fuel guage is an electrical device, and you were having electrical problems, maybe this is where you should be looking.
I don't know about the older holdens, but I chased an overheating problem in a commodore a couple of years ago for months. After I had invested several hundred dollars in new radiators, fans, auxilliary fans, fan shrouds etc, I discovered that the temperature was never as high at night time regardless how hard you drove it. It never had as much fuel in the tank at night time either (insert illuminated light globe inside head).
The dash in a commodore runs on about 8 volts, courtesy of an onboard voltage regulator, which when stuffed allows the dash to run at battery voltage, which with engine running is around 13.8 volts.....not too far off double. Headlights on, with 90 watt low beams, and the voltage would drop, causing a drop at  the guages.
From memory, a new regulator was a 3 second job once the dash was out, and cost me less than $10.
Does an FC/FE have a similar thing in the dash ??