Classic Winnebagos & Vintage RVs
Topic Boards => Dodge - Chrysler Chassis => Topic started by: brians1969 on December 11, 2011, 08:25 PM
So I had dropped the gas tank to clean it out and put a new sending unit in as the fuel gauge never worked. I had gotten a NOS unit off of ebay for $40. The part number showed it to be for a slightly bigger tank. Before I put the tank back in and even before I installed the sending unit, I tried it out to see how the gauge registered. At "full" in the tank, it was showing only half a tank on the gauge. I figured it was a poor ground and being in a rush, I put the tank back in.
Well, the ground was fine. I checked the wiring, which was fine. For some reason, it was showing about 130 ohms at 1/8 tank, instead of somewhere around 60 ohms. (Dodge senders are 70-10 ohms.) If the ohms were low, it would be an easy matter to just add a resistor inline. But it was high! So I did some research:
Basically, you put a resistor in parallel with the sender. This reduces the resistance. So after a little trial and error (their formula didn't seem to work for me) I put 66 ohms in parallel, and it is showing the correct 1/8 tank.
My question is: will this remain reasonably accurate at other fill levels? I know it's accurate at 1/8 tank which I guess is the most important. :-)
brian
Dodge senders are 70-10 ohms
10 ohms full
70 ohms empty