Fuel gauge broke?

[stevo96]

I have more electrical woes!
I'm not sure if it's the sender or the gauge, looking from underneath the dash I have a black wire (positive wire) and a brown wire on the G terminal, this terminal is showing 5 volts but I assume it's an earth? Is this my first problem? Around the base of the terminal is some orange/yellow crusty stuff, it could be glue? I've tried grounding the earth wire to another part of the van but nothing moves on the gauge ( I may of read how to do that in another post-not sure if it's right?)

[stevo96]

Van is a 72 lowlight x over model,

[stevo96]

Here are a few pics of what I have:


And behind the dash (I had disconnected the brown wire at this stage)

[Skoolieman]

I just dealt with this too. When you ground the wire, make sure you are grounding the wire to the sender, not the earth wire. If you touch the sender wire to ground the needle should bounce or go to full. If it does, then it is a sender issue. If not, time to start checking wiring.

Long story short, mine was not working. I filled the tank up to about 3/4 and it magically started working. I think it just needed to be jostled around a little bit. Good luck!
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'69 Westfalia Camper~Cassidy

[Wildthings]

[Hondaslayer]

[stevo96]

Which wire do I need to ground? I have two coming out of the back of the gauge which seem to attach below the gauge to the other lights on the bottom of the gauge, as I said previously - one of the wires has 12v and the other has 5-6V....

[stevo96]

OK, I earthed the wire - the needle on the fuel gauge shot to the top. I went to the sender end, cleaned up the terminals abd tested the postive wire - I get 6Volts at that wire but still nothing at the gauge? Is it my sender?? The tank was full of rust when I removed it but I didnt replace the sender. Thoughts?

[Skoolieman]

From what I understand, if the gauge jumps when you ground the wire then the sender is at fault. There is a thread on here somewhere about repairing your sender for 1 dollar. Not sure if that applies here...

Edit: Here is that thread- http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=380693&highlight=fuel+sender+repair
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'69 Westfalia Camper~Cassidy

[Wildthings]

Did you try touching the wire to the sender to a good ground? Since the wire has voltage on it that would imply that all was fine from the gauge to the sender end of the wire. As nasty as you sender looks I wouldn't expect you to be able to make a good connection to it.

[stevo96]

I did ground the wire to the sender, that's when the needle on the gauge shot up. The green ground wire from the sender, where does it attach once it leaves the sender? Isn't the sender already grounded?

[Wildthings]

Did you touch the sender end of the wire to the sender to a good ground, not to the sender or the tank?

The tank itself is not well grounded so VW added a wire to one of the sender screws to perform this function. At some point someone replaced the original wire with the green one you have.

[stevo96]

Nope, Ill try that tonight - I can't see where that green wire goes to looking through the cut out... ill have a gander later. Thanks

[stevo96]

I just realised, I had taken a pic before I removed the fuel tank, the green wire is grounded fine. I've ordered a new sender - hopefully that will fix things! The tank was very rusty and when I would kncok on the sender i would get rusty dust falling through one of the holes at the bottom of the sender - its probably all coroded inside - has anyone taken one apart to fix it?