Date:         Fri, 5 Jan 1996 16:19:14 -0500
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@vanagon.com>
From:         brigstoc@astral.magic.ca (John & Dianne Brigstocke)
Subject:      Re: Flaky fuel gauge

>
>>Maybe You can help me with mine then.. I replace the float on mine, 
>>replaced the fuel gauge and voltage stablizier, and still refuses to 
>>work.. but, if I take the float out of the tank and ground the top of the 
>>sender, I can make it work just fine.. So I figured, bad ground, right?  
>>So I did the same thing when it was in the tank, and still wouldn't 
>>work.. It would just always read full... :(
>
>If it reads full I think that means there is a ground somewhere where there
>shouldn't be, like you say. Have you checked the circuit with a multimeter?
>If it all checks out OK, maybe something's obstructing the float when it's
>in the tank.
>

The wiring from the gauge to the sender in my 86 westy for some unknown
reason (to me) went via the fuse box.  The wire was connected to a short
wire coming from the fuse block as well as to the wire leading to the fuel
tank sender.  This short wire was neither 12v or ground at the fuse box.
What was happening was that the current from the gauge was being shunted to
ground through a leak in the fuse box - this caused the gauge to read half
full even when tank empty. (I know - I walked for the gas).   I discovered
this after replacing the fuel gauge sender with no improvement.  The
solution? - simply cut the short wire going into the fuse box so that the
wire between gauge and sender is independent.  No problems since then!.

Don't know whether this fits but it's worth a look.

Good luck.
John & Dianne Brigstocke      
Unionville, Ontario (Canada)
93 SE Black/Tan      MCA, Trillium Chapter
86 Westy
brigstoc@astral.magic.ca