New type of fuel gauge sending unit?

[vwwestyman]

Has anyone used this type of fuel gauge sending unit? Is it any good?

The one in my '78 has died. I pulled it out and the resistor wire inside has broken.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Fuel-Tank-Sender-VW-Bus-19...3641.l6368

Luckily for me, there is an access hatch so it is easy to get to. I just put the old one back for now to seal up the tank and keep on driving.
_________________
Dave Cook

President, Wild Westerner Club

1978 Champagne Edition Westy, repowered to '97 Jetta TDI
1973 Wild Westerner
My Thing

[skills@eurocarsplus]

can't say that I have used it, but X2 on the access hole. we put a new sender in davearks bus, just to have it fail. that was the best hour making the door ever spent....

weather or not you're a purist, this is one "hack" that is 100% acceptable in my book. due to the shitty parts we are fed, who wants to pull the engine for this?
_________________

[vwwestyman]

I remember replacing it back in the summer of '03 but the stamping on it appears to have been from the '70s so it may have been a used part at the time. I don't really remember.

I cut the access hole way back then, and when I did the TDI conversion, I cut it larger and mounted the ECU to the cover plate. I figured it was a great spot for easy access as well as keeping the ECU safe and dry. That was handy when I went to install the chip last winter.

I started searching and found one mention of a sender like that, that never locked down and was returned.

The one that failed, how did it fail? What broke?
_________________
Dave Cook

President, Wild Westerner Club

1978 Champagne Edition Westy, repowered to '97 Jetta TDI
1973 Wild Westerner
My Thing

[BayCreamPuff]

Not sure if you've seen this thread, but you should be able to fix it pretty easily.

http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=380693&highlight=fuel+sender+resistor

Mine was too far gone to fix and I replaced it with one that looked more like the stock unit.

One thing to note about the one you linked to is that it doesn't have the 2 metal tabs used to adjust the resistance which I definitely had to do to match what the gauge expected. Not sure how you'd accomplish that with that plastic style.
_________________
Cream Puff
'79 CA Stock FI Deluxe Campmobile

Earl Grey
'87 GoWesty 2.2 Westfalia

Marsha Mellow
'00 Eurovan VR6 Full Camper

[SGKent]

I have the real VDO one that has to be adjusted. For the price I would try it and see what happens. It could be that it will work better than than the VDO is it is a genuine VW part. Lots of their parts were made in Mexico and Brazil etc in the late 70's.

There are a couple threads around 2006 mentioning a Flotamex brand pump that looks like that. No real reports on it. I might consider asking the seller to confirm that those are indeed Genuine VW parts and not aftermarket or repops.
_________________
"Most people don't know what they're doing, and a lot of them are really good at it." - George Carlin

[skills@eurocarsplus]

[Manfred58sc]

Access holes are a must, because we will be in an endless cycle of replacing junk replacement parts very soon (almost there). I fear any reliability for ACVW will soon die and they will be "Sunday" drivers only. I drive my Bus daily and my personal stash of real German parts is getting low. Hell, I'm happy when I see a Mexican part anymore!! The e-bay part must be Chinese for the money, the sellers goobly-gook instructions are entertaining.
_________________
Fat chick owner/operator

[vwwestyman]

I ended up ordering the factory "style" sender from Bus Depot. I wish I had saved it, but I did find one thread that showed what looked like the "new" type along with a complaint that it didn't tighten properly. So I just went with BD.

I saw comments on adjusting the float. Are folks bending the little tabs that hang down to allow the arm to travel further up, or are they bending the actual float arm to lower the float a little?
_________________
Dave Cook

President, Wild Westerner Club

1978 Champagne Edition Westy, repowered to '97 Jetta TDI
1973 Wild Westerner
My Thing

[SGKent]

both. I had the tank out while adjusting it and it had just been cleaned so I was able to reach the float with a yard stick thru the fill opening. The original floats had a flat top so they rose higher in the tank. These can't rise high enough because the float sits above the arm. The arm has to be bent down in the middle a little so it thinks it is higher when the float hits the top of the tank.
_________________
"Most people don't know what they're doing, and a lot of them are really good at it." - George Carlin

[BayCreamPuff]

I had to do both.

Hook it up to an ohm meter and bend the tabs so that it's within spec.
Then put it in the tank with a known quantity of fuel. Hook up the two wires and check your gauge. Bend the sender arm until you get the reading you want. I believe I filled my tank all the way and bent the arm so that it read dead on F at full. Then drive until you run out of gas so you know what empty looks like
_________________
Cream Puff
'79 CA Stock FI Deluxe Campmobile

Earl Grey
'87 GoWesty 2.2 Westfalia

Marsha Mellow
'00 Eurovan VR6 Full Camper

[Wildthings]

I just ordered one as my 8'ish year needs to come out. I adjusted it as well as I could when I first put it and and it has slowly read worse and worse. Time to try something else and maybe rewind the VDO.

[vwwestyman]

New one came today, and I got it installed. Luckily for adjusting the float, I have a spare tank in the shed. So I mounted the sender in the spare tank and was able to flip it upside down to see how much the arm needed bent. I made a slight tweak once it was in my tank but this was pretty close.

Compared with the old one I took out.

_________________
Dave Cook

President, Wild Westerner Club

1978 Champagne Edition Westy, repowered to '97 Jetta TDI
1973 Wild Westerner
My Thing