Fuel gauge?

[O-F]

Hey all, I have a 70s classic, with a 73 Evinrude 85. The gas tank is a Tempo Long cruise 18 gallon black steel tank. All summer I had complained that there is NO way to tell how much fuel is left. No gauge on dash, and no gauge on the tank. I just took the tank out of the boat to winterize, and saw a grey steel circle on top of the tank. Out of curiosity I unscrewed the 5 bolts holding the circle on, and discovered that it was leading to a float arm with a float. This tells me that there is a way to hook up a gauge. How difficult is his to do? Any help would be great. Thanks.

 

[metriccrescentwrench]

It should be very manageable. You'll need to find a fuel sender that matches (as closely as possible) the depth of your tank. Hopefully your tank has the standard bolt pattern (you'll find that those holes aren't symmetrical, the sender will fit in one and only one direction). Then you'll need to put a fuel gauge in your dash, get power to the gauge, and run two wires from the gauge to the sender.

 

[Watermann]

2 wires, pos to the center stud and neg to the bayonet connector or some use one of the screws around the ring for neg.

 

[GA_Boater]

If your sender/float looks something like the picture, with the stud in the center, you have a sender for a dash mounted gauge. Between metric and Water, you have the wiring.

 

[frank246]

2 wires, pos to the center stud and neg to the bayonet connector or some use one of the screws around the ring for neg.

I hope you dont mean to hook up the float sender like you described.


Run a wire, negative - (massa) to the tank sender base.
From the tank sender center terminal run a wire to the gauge S (signal) terminal.
Run a wire from ign key terminal 12v+ (when ign is on) to the gauge POS (12v) terminal and ..a negative- (mass) to the gauge neg. terminal.
thats all to make it work.
Use a gauge ..mostly 240-33 ohm to work with standard sender.
Do never hook 12V+ pos to the tank sender or come even close to that !!

 

[Chris1956]

Frank is correct. You do not want to run +12VDC to the sender. That could be an explosion issue.....

 

[Watermann]

Yeah sorry, got distracted during that post... the sender stud in the center goes to the gauge not the battery. Try to clear that up by a simple diagram...