One day it was working, the next day it wasn't. I have a WEMA SSL 15 sending unit. Pulled it today and float looked fine, definitely not stuck but may not be floating, can't tell. Wiring looked good but I forgot to take my multimeter down to the boat so I could not Ohm it out. I won't order a new sending unit until I go back and do that but just wondered if anyone had experienced this and had any theories on it. Fuel guage is showing E until I turn the key on then it drops just below E. I have about 22 gallons in the 24 gallon tank right now.
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You may try to run some gas with Techron in it. It seems to help car sending units. Or go get a bottle of Techron fuel system cleaner at autozone. -
I've seldom seen a boat with a working gas gauge.Comment
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Seldom seen anyone care either save for the offshore guysOriginally posted by ultrastealth View PostComment
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Other gauges working? I'd check the ground to that gauge or all. Seen boat gauges go nuts with a bad ground.Comment
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Even when they work they don't usually work well.Originally posted by ultrastealth View PostComment
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Only other guage is a tach and it's working. Since I really only have one wire set running to the cranking battery I didn't bother disconnecting the negative there. Everything else works fine. I'll just run back down this weekend with the multimeter.
I do care how much fuel I have as my good buddy here doesn't go a day without somebody in our circles ribbing him over one epic night when he ran out of gas on the lake years ago. All the wrong people were involved in the tow-in. That won't be me.
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Eliminate the gauge first. To do so, go to the fuel tank sending unit. There should be two wires. Take the top one off and "ground" it to the other wire momentarily. This bypasses the resistance. If the gauge goes to Full when you touch the sender wires, this usually means the gauge works and the sender is bad. If the gauge does nothing, you probably have a bad gauge (and maybe a bad sender). This should be done with the key ON.Originally posted by TexaRican View PostComment
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Good idea. I was going to just eliminate the sender first by ohm testing those same 2 wires. I know what it should read at full and at empty and my tank is nearly full. Nice to have a way of testing the guage too!Originally posted by TeamAmerica View PostComment
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Originally posted by ultrastealth View Post
I can’t function that way. Have good friends who are polar opposite and will go fish with the most jerry-rigged boat with nothing but the throttle working. Me, I won’t sleep well knowing something on my boat is broken. Sometimes I think I should have been an engineer.
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This^^^Originally posted by TeamAmerica View Post
Then If good, ohm out the actual sending unit. Using your meter you will see it increase and decrease as you move the float up and down. I’ve ran into some that had bad spots on the resistor in the sending unit and would simulate intermittent signals. It’s one of the two assuming the wires are good all the way to gauge.Comment
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I have fuel gauges on the 3 tanks, but I run off my fuel burn average. The suzuki gauges are usually within a gallon of fuel used, but I just can't trust those.
I know what you mean tho by having everything in working order tho.Comment
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Finally found time to pull the sending unit and test with ohm meter. It tested fine so I ordered a new gauge which took me maybe 15 minutes to install tonight. All good now and ready to venture out with the idiots tomorrow to watch fireworks.
Not looking forward to being on the lake in that mess and the huge logs I saw floating today have me even more worried. At least I won’t run out of gas[emoji23]
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