$50 fuel gauge mistake: Ground your tank.

[wythac]

A cautionary tale: Couldn't get my VDO guage to work with my stock tank and sender. Pulled the cowl, pulled the sender, pulled the gauge, changed to wire, tested them all, and the gauge was the only component that I thought might be an issue, so I ordered a new gauge. Installed it with the same result. Unhappy with myself. More unhappy when I realized what I had missed....that a tank mounted on a fiberglass body would need a ground wire run from the tank to the chassis to have a proper ground.


Stupid oversight, because I had addressed this issue elsewhere on the car in numerous spots...karma dictated that the system that was least accessible once assembled would be the problem area that would require me to do a lot of extra work, only to then discover that all that work was completely unnecessary.

[Glenn]

You have to ground everything since fiberglass does not conduct.
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74 Beetle Specs | 74 Beetle Restoration | 2180cc Engine
"You may not get what you pay for, but you always pay for what you get"

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[wythac]

You are correct, Glenn, but I think you missed the point of my post. It isn't that I didn't know that, because as I mentioned, I had addressed the same grounding issue on other components of the car. I missed one, and it cost me a half a day's work, $50, and the realization that I am not as smart and thorough as I think I am.

Despite the fact that I knew every system needs a continuity loop, I missed one, and looked for more complicated $olutions before figuring out it was something really simple. That was the "cautionary tale" part....Make sure you look for the simple solutions first. I convinced myself thru inadequate tests of the components and applications that I had a problem that didn't exist, and came up with a solution that ended up being unnecessary. Thought I would pass that on here, as there are numerous posts about buggy wiring that keep popping up. A search did not turn up a thread specifically about this subject, so I added this one to save someone the same stupid waste of time I put myself thru this weekend.

[Glenn]

Ever notice that one of the 5 screws on a late model sender has a metal washer while the other 4 have plastic?

Hey.. we all make mistakes. At least it wasn't something that was serious like your brake lights.
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Glenn
74 Beetle Specs | 74 Beetle Restoration | 2180cc Engine
"You may not get what you pay for, but you always pay for what you get"

Member #1009

#BlueSquare

[wythac]

My sender didn't come with a hardware kit, which if it did, might have helped clue me in. No excuses though...I think once I thought I had to take the cowl back off, I was no longer inclined to believe it was something simple, even though I had encountered a similar problem on a steel bodied beetle many years ago(new tank,fresh paint, resulting in an inconsistent continuity problem). That was the truly stupid part..I stopped looking for the obvious.

[Dale M.]

Didn't you know...... All trouble shooting is complicated just to find the painfully obvious simple problem.....

OH well...... IT works and informational message is out.......

Dale
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"Joe Pody Sandrover" Buggy with 2180 for Autocross (Sold)
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All suggestions and advice are purely my own opinion. You are free to ignore them if you wish ...

[sturgeongeneral]

I thought that regardless of electronic or the "float" style fuel guage sender that you use, you want to ground the tank against static discharge for safety.
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In honor of bowtie56jw:Another victim of the nasty "C" Praying for ya Jeff!

My exwife said if I towed home one more bug she would leave me. You know, every once in a while I miss her

[Hank22]

It seems obvious to me now, but I could have very well had the same problem!

Good Safety Tip Egon

[wythac]

Sturgeon points out another reason why I should not have overlooked this. I suppose I should be thankful that this problem did not manifest itself as a more serious safety issue, like an exploding gas tank, or I forgot to bleed the brakes, or secure the master cylinder, etc, etc.

Another Mea Culpa, while I am at it; I did run over my own foot with the car about a week before getting it on the road, when a battery cable I thought I had isolated drifted back into contact(cable memory "hopped" the small piece of wood I put between the lead and the post) with the pos terminal while I was working on connections to the starter. Good thing I have a buggy hobby and not a Buick hobby...I might have a limp now.

If it hadn't been a buggy, I might have been under it instead of standing next to it. I got lazy and didn't disconnect the neg terminal too, resulting in what could have been a real mess...car at the bottom of the hill by itself, me, dazed or dead on the floor of my shop.

I got a bad case of "roller fever" at the end of the process of getting this thing on the road. Moral of the story; don't lose sight of the basics, as they will come back and bite you in the ass every time. I was even following a safety punchlist, but a list won't make obvious the things you forgot to put on the list in the first place...only your experience will take care of that.

[gorf2008]

I parked my 73 vert on my foot in a grocery store parking lot while holding my 2 year old son once. It was about 10:30 PM and I went to put my tool back between the seats so it would be harder to snatch. It came in contact with the push button start and rolled the car forward on to my sandled foot.

Well, I stood there with the car on my foot a good 15 minutes, then someone parked nearby and I had him roll the car backward. If I was tough I would have just used the toolbox push the starter and to roll it completely over my foot.. but I'm not.. so I stood there with a VW on my toes.

[wythac]

Here is another sordid tale of stupid assumptions to add to the list of Occam's razor tales; I figure I'm not a complete dumbass as long as my frequency of these kind of mistakes are about once every five years or so...

Washed the buggy yesterday. Usually fire the motor up right away to make sure everything dried up/out but I didn't have time. Went to start the car later, it ran for about 10 seconds then stopped. I couldn't start it again.

I figured I had gotten something wet, even though I seal everything up pretty good since on a buggy the motor is exposed. Took the cap off the distributor, pulled the plugs and turned the motor over...reinstalled everything.....Nuthin.

Then I checked the connections on the coil. Red wire and black wire from the distributor (Pertronix Flamethrower) looked good but I took them off and snugged them back on. Nuthin. Its getting dark now so I give up for the night.


Later the next day I come back to it. I do a continuity test at the coil, power on both sides but no spark. I decide it has to be a coincidental failure of the ignition module of the distributor so I decide to remove the distributor to take the ignition module out on the bench. It is here that I discovered my simple mistake: The red wire from the coil to the distributor had come loose from the coil. The red wire I saw on the coil came from the ignition switch. I saw red and I didn't register that I needed TWO red wires on that post. With the larger distributor and coil mounted down low on the case, I didn't see the terminal end of the wire to the distributor wasn't connected until i was removing the distributor. Car was running fine ten minutes later.

A few lessons relearned:

Along with your wiring, check your premises...when you think it is one thing, you can often only find those problems that fit your preconceived notions.


Don't work on wiring by flashlight unless you have to.

When you step away from a project, back up a few steps that you think you already covered, because you probably missed something.

Last but not least: it is almost always the simplest of problems requiring the simplest of solutions. I didn't find my simple problem until I decided there was a complicated solution (remove distributor to replace module, which would have to be ordered on the net, etc, etc.)

This did get me thinking how totally screwed I would be if that little bastard did take a nap. I'll be getting an extra module, cap and rotor for the toolbox.

[lil-jinx]

Don't beat yourself over this.I was adjusting the toe on the buggy and adjustinting the left tie rod to get the steering wheel straight,adjust,drive,adjust drive again did this several times,had it all set,a week later I found that I never tightened and locked the tie rod jam nuts,that was scarry.

[jspbtown]

I don't have enough fingers AND toes to count on for the number of times I did something absolutely silly that required me to spend a boat load of time to correct.

I now tell myself "You are building a CAR....it really isn't that simple and there is alot to remember".

[wythac]

I usually just roll my eyes and if it is something incredibly stupid I'll even get a laugh out of it. The relief of finding a simple and quick solution is a good balm for a knothead.

I suppose if I was really sensitive about it I wouldn't post my mistakes on the Internet!

[VOLKSWAGNUT]

Mistakes are the way to learn..... nothing wrong with simple mistakes.

.
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