Erratic fuel gauge

[TurboFreak]

Tank, sender and gauges were all fitted when I took over this Pilgrim Sumo build project.

Lots of problems resolved, many due very poor standard of work already carried out.

Can anyone suggest best way to stabilize the fuel gauge, it moves around with petrol in tank,( ie if tank half full the gauge jumps between 1/4 to 3/4 )

I recall early mk1 minis had a stabilizer of some sort fitted to back of gauge between feed from tank sender to stop this problem, is this something that might work to sort my problem or is new gauge faulty?

Any advice appreciated.

PS: Nearly ready for AVI, just gearbox to be sent for rebuild and hood to fit.

[mylesdw]

Are you sure it is slosh that you are seeing? Does the gauge stabilise correctly when you are just cruising along? The gauges I have seen (Smiths type) are heavily damped and unlikely to show short-term changes in fuel level, just the average.

[Dek]

Is it rev dependant? The higher the revs the higher the reading? If so, sounds like it needs a voltage stabiliser.
Dek

[Eggbert]

Be very careful about adding a capacitor across "anything"! It's basically the same as a battery, and if the sensor shorts, it can provide a high amperage spark that could cause the fuel tank to explode. Here's a post I made about it a while back"

http://www.cobraclub.com/forum/showthread.php?t=49776

[cperry]

Tank, sender and gauges were all fitted when I took over this Pilgrim Sumo build project.

Lots of problems resolved, many due very poor standard of work already carried out.

Can anyone suggest best way to stabilize the fuel gauge, it moves around with petrol in tank,( ie if tank half full the gauge jumps between 1/4 to 3/4 )

I recall early mk1 minis had a stabilizer of some sort fitted to back of gauge between feed from tank sender to stop this problem, is this something that might work to sort my problem or is new gauge faulty?

Any advice appreciated.

PS: Nearly ready for AVI, just gearbox to be sent for rebuild and hood to fit.

I thought the needles had the equivalent of dampers on them to stop them bouncing about all over the place?

When you turn the ignition on, does the needle shoot up straight away, or move slowly?

[Lloyd Barnes]

Assuming you cannot resolve the underlying issue, then the other solution would be one of these. As well as "antislosh" it helps to tune the sender/gauge to the tank. Useful particularly if your tank is an odd shape

https://www.spiyda.com/fuel-gauge-wizard-mk3.html

[ChrisP]

Assuming you cannot resolve the underlying issue, then the other solution would be one of these. As well as "antislosh" it helps to tune the sender/gauge to the tank. Useful particularly if your tank is an odd shape

https://www.spiyda.com/fuel-gauge-wizard-mk3.html

Yep, I fitted one a while back. Bit of a fiddle to get the settings right but with some patience and a look at their YouTube instructions it is not too challenging. Although they supply it with a load of ‘near enough’ presets I found I had to enter the resistance values for each stage to get mine spot on but it is totally spot on and the anti slosh stopped the gauge from varying. Good product.

[Chris1]

If you have any suspicion with the voltage stabiliser,
don't mess about, change a s a p otherwise there is a
good chance that it will wreck any gauges that are on
that circuit.
Usually fuel & coolant temp gauges.
Chris.

[Chris1]

If you have any suspicion that the voltage stabiliser
is faulty,
change a s a p otherwise it will probably wreck any
gauges on that circuit.
Usually the fuel & coolant temperature gauges.
Chris.

[Chris1]

Don't know what happened there.