caber
Just bought a used Landrover Defender fuel gauge off ebay to use in My Avon.
I connected it up temporarily to the dash wiring and my fuel sender (not from a Landrover) which has a range in region of 30 - 270 ohms.
With ignition on and sender removed from tank, I simply get full scale deflection (i.e. reads full) irrespective of what position I move float arm of
sender to.
If I remove feed wire from sender then gauge drops to zero. If I earth out this wire then, again, I get full scale deflection.
Has anyone used the same fuel gauge and if so, what sender did you use? (Looking on ebay, a genuine landrover sender looks to be a big cumbersome
thing which looks as though it would be way too big to fit in a 'seven' type tank.)
Cheers,
Andy.
First check the sender to see if the resitance is changing, might be worth a look first
Are you on the right terminal? some senders have a low level warning light connection. As it happens most older land rovers have these. I have an old
Range rover sender but didn't use it as it is side entry rather than top entry and was foul of the baffle.
caber
Yup. checked sender with multimeter and resistance varies between approx. 280 ohms (float at its lowest level i.e. empty) and 30ohms (at its highest
i.e. full.)
So its not the sender itself. (unless, of course, its not suitable, anyway.)
Does anyone know what the resistance range of a landrover sender is etc?.
I also swapped around terminals. made no difference.
Andy.
[Edited on 17/4/07 by andrew.carwithen]
I have LR fitted with twin fuel tanks and using two defender guages.
The data given for resistance match up very well with the series senders which I am afraid to say, are not compatible with the Defender guages.
There are 2 issues:
Series guages run off a 10 V voltage stabiliser, Defender guages run directly off the battery 14-ish V.
Secondly, I am pretty sure the Defender sender works in opposite direction - i.e. high resistance when full and low when empty; from memory I think
the max resistance is 1 K ohm.
Basically using a Series sender with Defender guage should show some deflection but not enough and in the wrong direction.
So now you are wondering how come I got it to work? I made a small circuit that did two things - scale the voltage from the sender (compensates for
different resistances) to the defender and to invert the signal (compensate for the different direction).
Simplest solution is to change the guage for a series one (whcih you can't as a separate guage does not exist - usually they were part of another
guage) or use defender sender.
quote:
(Looking on ebay, a genuine landrover sender looks to be a big cumbersome thing which looks as though it would be way too big to fit in a 'seven' type tank.
and DIY adapter:
Rescued attachment adp.JPG
TBH, I think the senders I saw on ebay were for the Discovery (may also incorporate the fuel pump - hence why they look bulky?). I just assumed
(probably wrongly!) that the senders would be the same as used in a Defender?
Do you (or anyone else) have pics of a defender fuel sender?
or, if as you say, the Defender fuel gauge isn't suitable, recommend one that is? (its a pity, 'cos the Defender fuel gauge almost matches
my Fireblade clocks.)
Andy.