H€PHÆ$TU$
Active Member
1998 Sportster 1800
My fuel gauge always used to read empty. I read about the issues with the sending units so I had mine repaired (F1 blown). (I'm insanely mechanically-inclined, but repair was cheap and I don't enjoy soldering or welding plastic, so that's why I had it done.) When I plugged it back in it pegged out at full instead of empty despite the tank being half full. I really hadn't had time to properly diagnose it but I do have an identical parts boat at a remote location so I went and grabbed its fuel gauge just to test it. When I plugged it in it defaulted to full as well, so I figured the problem was elsewhere. But then as I wiggled the connector it dropped back down to empty. Wiggled it a bit more and it went to half. (Correct.) Eventually I realized that, if I held it just right it would stay at the correct level so now I figured maybe the wires were loose in the connector. But as I played with it more I was simply squeezing the body of the gauge without moving the wires and was able to get the same results as I was when I was wiggling the connector. I swapped back to my original gauge and got all the same results.
So my question is if these are common symptoms of a bad gauge? I wouldn't be surprised if I do have 2 bad gauges, but it's also not very high odds.
I guess I'm going to pull one of these gauges apart and see if there is any corrosion or anything obvious going wrong inside. But if someone with some experience with bad gauges can reply and let me know something that isn't obvious that would be helpful.
My fuel gauge always used to read empty. I read about the issues with the sending units so I had mine repaired (F1 blown). (I'm insanely mechanically-inclined, but repair was cheap and I don't enjoy soldering or welding plastic, so that's why I had it done.) When I plugged it back in it pegged out at full instead of empty despite the tank being half full. I really hadn't had time to properly diagnose it but I do have an identical parts boat at a remote location so I went and grabbed its fuel gauge just to test it. When I plugged it in it defaulted to full as well, so I figured the problem was elsewhere. But then as I wiggled the connector it dropped back down to empty. Wiggled it a bit more and it went to half. (Correct.) Eventually I realized that, if I held it just right it would stay at the correct level so now I figured maybe the wires were loose in the connector. But as I played with it more I was simply squeezing the body of the gauge without moving the wires and was able to get the same results as I was when I was wiggling the connector. I swapped back to my original gauge and got all the same results.
So my question is if these are common symptoms of a bad gauge? I wouldn't be surprised if I do have 2 bad gauges, but it's also not very high odds.
I guess I'm going to pull one of these gauges apart and see if there is any corrosion or anything obvious going wrong inside. But if someone with some experience with bad gauges can reply and let me know something that isn't obvious that would be helpful.
