Date:         Fri, 28 Sep 2007 08:28:48 -0700
Reply-To:     Don Hanson <dhanson@GORGE.NET>
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From:         Don Hanson <dhanson@GORGE.NET>
Subject:      Re: Unforseen, but very nice...Improved accuracy of Gas Guage.
Comments: To: Loren Busch <starwagen@gmail.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"

  My vanagon, is an 84, now with a westie interior, but no poptop.  Weighs 4100lbs with 1/2 tank, driver and a weeks worth of travel gear aboard.  Has a Cabriolet (Rabbit) 1.8 liter inline 4 motor without smog equipment, and it runs through a manual 5 speed trans on regular street tires.
  At 65-75mph, I get an average 23mpg. Recently:  Worst was 21.3 best was 25.4.   For a margin of safety,  I usually figure on 22mpg when I work out my fuel range, which is usually 350mi.  I fill up at 300 mi, when traveling in the backcountry of the west.
  When I was diagnosing my recent alternator failure with List help, someone mentioned (?) that the alternator "exciter" wire might go to/through the instruments, or to the dash gauges (?) maybe.  Anyhow, as I was crossing the 'outback' of eastern Oregon on hwy 395 without any charging system--just running on battery power alone--as my batteries got to the bottom of their charge, the gauges began to read really low...Low temp, low fuel..when I knew I had gas and I could feel heat...So the readings ARE dependent on the state of your electrical system's current...(Duh!)
  I surmise that for some time, my alternator may have been "weak" and sending low power to my gas gauge, causing it to behave lazily...It has always, since I've owned this van, dropped quickly (within about 50 miles of driving after a fill up)  to about 1/3 full and stayed there, then began to behave like a gauge again at about 300 miles, but working across a very narrow sweep of the dial, usually from the top of the red to the bottom over the last hundred miles.  I have always used my trip odometer to keep track of my fuel, for this reason.
  But now the silly gas gauge MAY be working properly..I'll trust it after half a dozen tanks of fuel...
  Don Hanson
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Loren Busch 
  To: Don Hanson 
  Cc: vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com 
  Sent: Thursday, September 27, 2007 11:22 PM
  Subject: Re: [VANAGON] Unforseen, but very nice...Improved accuracy of Gas Guage.


  Your getting 290 plus miles on a tank?  Like on a 2wd Westy? Or Vanagon?  Tell me more...


  On 9/27/07, Don Hanson < dhanson@gorge.net> wrote:

      Now, at about 290 miles driven, I am just at the top of the red...about 
    where it should be...