Fuel Gauge Not Working

[Bama J]

New member here, so hello everybody. I have recently became a boat owner for the first time, and have purchased a 1999 Fisher Freedom DLX 200 Pontoon. The last time out, my fuel gauge stopped working all of a sudden. When we were on the way back to the boat ramp, it did flicker a few times and showed the correct reading, but it was only for a second or two then it went back to empty.

I began troubleshooting by looking at the wires at the sender end, the connections looked a little funky so i replaced the connectors on both the wires with new and cleaned them. I then put an ohmmeter across the connector of the pink wire and the ground wire while they were connected to the sender and it read about 95 ohms, which is about right because I should have between 1/2 and 3/4 of a tank of fuel. I even rocked the boat a little and the ohms flunctuated as the fuel sloshed around, so if I did this right, I think the sender is good.

I chased the wire to the dashboard, I can see it all the way and it looks fine. I tested the guage by running a jumper wire from the S post to the ground post, and the guage went to full. So it appears the guage is good. For good measure, I also replaced the connectors on the guage end, even though they looked fine. All my other gauges work fine, and they are grounded in series, and the fuel gauge is actually the middle on of the three, so it doesn't seem to be a bad ground. Also, voltmeter shows 12v going to the gauge when the key is on, so it's getting power.

So, if the gauge is good, the sender is good, and the wiring looks fine, what's left? I'm stumped here.

 

[Fl_Richard]

Re: Fuel Gauge Not Working

Wiring "looks" fine is the key phrase.

Run a new wire from the sender across the deck and connect it directly to the gauge.

My guess is you have a bad connection. My wellcraft had molded connectors in the factory harness at the level sensor. The wire had broken inside the plastic molded part but it looked ok because the wire insulation was unbroken. The Insulation kept enough pressure on the broken wire to work most of the time especially when you were firmly pressing a meter probe into the connector. when you weren't pressing a probe into it it would barely touch causing the gauge to read lower and lower levels as the impedance went up.

 

[flargin]

Re: Fuel Gauge Not Working

Agree with Richard...

also, make sure to sand down the connectors before you re-connect.

re-check/verify the ohms are the same at the tank and the end of the wire as well. I don't know the exact ohm range for a full to empty sender, if someone has that it may also be a telling sign.

Hey -- Welcome to the forums....