Removing Fuel Sender From A Fuel Tank

[humanz 3]

My fuel sender appears to be non-working. I have a spare fuel sender I'd like to swap in, but the tank with the non-working sender is still on the car, with an unknown quantity of fuel!

 

The Haynes manual says the system should be depressurized before attempting to replace the sender, but I'm unsure as to what I'm supposed to do to depressurize the system. How do you go about removing the fuel sender? Where do I start?

[DamirGTI 327]

No need for depressurizing anything it's an easy job really .. slide the back seats down , lift the carpet from under the seats and you'll see two black plastic caps - below the big one is fuel pump and below the smaller one is fuel sender ... so remove this the smaller one (just lift it with screwdriver) and you'll see the sender unit below , now , it's secured on to the tank with plastic ring - find some say 45deg. nose pliers , open them and "jam" the tips in between the ring tooths and turn the ring with pliers anticlockwise all the way up to the top .. remove/replace the sender and refit/screw back the securing ring ...

 

Damir

Edited February 13, 2009 by DamirGTI

[welshpug 1,627]

to de-pressurize, start car, pull out fuse 14 and wait for engine to stop, turn off ignition and refit fuse.

 

proceed to work on furl system

[humanz 3]

to de-pressurize, start car, pull out fuse 14 and wait for engine to stop, turn off ignition and refit fuse.

 

That sounds quick, only I don't have a fuse 14. Any other suggestions? Swapping the senders sounds simple enough, but I really don't like the thought of messing around with the fuel system.

[welshpug 1,627]

whichever one is you fuel pump fuse

[humanz 3]

Well, I simply removed the fuel sender without trying to depressurize the system. It went ok. The sender I removed looked relatively new, as compared with the spare I tried out. The funny thing is, as bad as the spare looked, I still got a reading (not an accurate one, as the gauge fluctuates and reads just above R). The one that was removed has some minor damage at the bottom of the sender: the metal casing has peeled backwards a little. It made removal from the tank a bit difficult. I'll take some photos to explain what I mean if necessary, but I was just wondering if I could try servicing the sender somehow, to return it to a working state. I don't think I'll ever get the spare sender to give a reliable reading, so I need to know if I should just get a replacement one right now.

 

Note: I've really got to stop posting when I'm this sleepy. It's really hard to tell if I'm making any sense.

[DamirGTI 327]

Theres two type of senders , Ph1 and Ph2 fitting Ph2 sender in Ph1 fuel tank will give you different readings ! and vice versa ..

 

I've been dismantling this senders before , inside is an spring coil connected to the float which drives/slides up and down the center rod , float also has some kind of "stop legs" which by adjusting/bending them inside/outside you can slow or speed up the float movement up and down the enter rod .. and from inside on top of the sender theres a few (three if memory serves me) joints which are soldered to the top sender contact terminals (the ones where you connect the sender connector in ..)

 

Damir

[humanz 3]

I've been dismantling this senders before , inside is an spring coil connected to the float which drives/slides up and down the center rod , float also has some kind of "stop legs" which by adjusting/bending them inside/outside you can slow or speed up the float movement up and down the enter rod .. and from inside on top of the sender theres a few (three if memory serves me) joints which are soldered to the top sender contact terminals (the ones where you connect the sender connector in ..)

 

Is this damage serious? Or should the gauge still work?

How do I go about dismantling the sender? Simply pull off the plastic at the bottom?