Fuel Sender Question

[grey beard]

I sure would like to know if anyone of you has had firsrt-person experience wih replacing a Pilohouse fuel gauge sender that functions properly. JCXW senders, contrary to popular opinion - do not work on these vehicles. Seems like some of the local wisdom afloat is not quite accurate enough to make a dash unit function properly. Any authoritative information is coveted. My fuel tank is painted and ready to go in, soon as I find a compatable sender for it.

Thanks

[norrism1]

grey beard

I used a sender from Andy B and it worked fine. I converted to 12 volt neg tho so I don't know if yours is still 6 volt pos ground or not.

[H Suhling]

Grey Beard

I used a sending unit from Robert's and it's working fine been installed about a year now. It's still 6 volts.

Harvey

[grey beard]

Ammendment to my original post l. . . . . .

Boy, is my face red. Shoulda' known better, but as they say in PA Dutch country, "We get too soon old and too late smart."

When I was testing my fuel gauge circuit, I had everything connected - sender and dash gauge - with jumper wires all laid out on the bench in apple pie order, just like the schematic in the shop manual. Gauge always read full with current applied, regardless of the position of the sender arm. Fooled with three different dash gauges with no joy. Tried to add a series resistor to increase the resistance to the gauge to cut down on the needle reading. Still no joy.

Then after two weeks of playing with the thing and thinking about it, it came to me that even though I had a complete circuit and it was just like the onje in the shop manual, I had not grounded the base of the gauge. Another jumper wire from the ground of the sender to the base of the dash gauge, and VIOLA, perfect gauge reading - nice and steady.

Only problem I still have is that readings are not quite full and not quite empty at the two extremes of the arm swing on the sender. Guess the ohm range for the JCW unit is a little smaller than the OEM sender unit. This one has a range of 19 to 89 ohms, reading from my own ohmmeter. so the orginal must have been a little wider than this.

Please know that the JCW $20 buck fuel sender will inded work on our vehicles if you are willing to change out the top disk that fits into the tank opening and figure out the insulating post requirements. The original sender disk must be tack welded to the new sender frame for a good connection and the electrical post must be totally insulated where it comes through the old disk from the new sender - not too big a job. New senders from Bernbum and Roberts are $85 and from VPW are $170. Go figger . . .

[bach4660]

our fuel gauges are 10 to 90 so you are right it won't quite read the extremes.

[grey beard]

One last addendum to this subject: If you choose to use the JCW sender on your Pilothouse, please be very careful when you move or reposition the single wire going from the rheostat to the terminal on top of the unit. It is very fragile. Ask me how I know this . . . spent several hours doing a micro-repair at this point just from moving the wire during the sawing-off phase of the too-long-but-adjustable stem. These are decent units but are quite fragile at his one point. Best to secue the wire at the base of the rheostat with a small tie-wrap before doing any adjusting or repositioning of the unit that is required to use this in our tanks.

The unit is very versitile and can be made to fit a variety of tanks, but it takes some careful thinking and planning. If you have any problems at this point using this part, do not hesitate to contact me. I'm one of those who needs to learn everything the hard way . . . .

Thanks