1979-1993 & 94 Conv [Subscribe to Daily Digest] |
I've thought about this a bit. My sender's float was sinking last year, so I did a little research.
First, I measured the sender's resistance. Full is 5 ohms, empty is 67 ohms.
That's close to the VW Bug sender (10 - 65 ohms). The Beetle sender is also small enough (2-1/8" diameter) that it would fit in the hole in our tanks with a little room for an adapter. I wonder if the best route might be to adapt the bug sender to work in our tanks. That would require building an adapter (easy with a lathe to make one out of Delrin or some other plastic which is fuel resistant) and figuring out a good spot where it can swing up and down, since it is a swing type float and ours is a sliding float. Then we have to look at the stroke length of the Bug sender and compare it to ours. We could modify this, by changing the length of the swing arm.
Finally, there is the issue of the low fuel light. In our senders, this is a redundant mechanism, with a separate contact, connected to a reed switch in the column that is operated by a magnet in the float. This is part of the reason restoring the float in our senders is likely impossible. I researched the difficulty of soldering up a brass float out of sheet, but deemed it unfeasible when I found out I would have to put a magnet in there as well as all the rest of the contours that the stock float has.
To this end, there are VDO fuel senders that have a reed switch for low fuel light, and they come in a variety of lengths, but these are all for a different ohm range. It may be possible to adjust this using a resistor in parallel with the sender, since they are high ohms when empty and low ohms when full.
Pagano has made some sort of adapter that allows us to use the 9000 sender (incorporated with the pump) with a 900 gauge. I do not know how it works, but it costs a lot and is likely quite simple inside. The 9000 ohm range is backward to the 900, from what I recall (e.g. full is high and empty is low). Maybe someone will tell me that there's a variety of 9000 or NG900 sender with a full is low ohms logic. That could work with a simple resistor in parallel to adjust the ohms. Maybe someone well versed in electronics can tell me an easy way to reverse an ohm range with analog circuit components. I don't know it.
I am experimenting with drying out my float to hopefully allow it to float again. But I also found a spare sender to try. I think that finding a used sender is still the path of least resistance.
Anyway, that's all the research I have done, for what it's worth. Hopefully it helps someone!
posted by 98.118.10...
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, Fri, 25 Aug 2023 13:40:21, Fri, 25 Aug 2023 17:31:42
, Fri, 25 Aug 2023 20:32:01, Sat, 26 Aug 2023 11:19:58
, Sat, 26 Aug 2023 12:22:53, Fri, 25 Aug 2023 20:42:231
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