Yesterday, after driving back from my cousin's house I hit a bump which I really didn't pay too much attention at the beginning. When I got home before I shut down the engine I realized that the Fuel Gauge needle was all the way down..to the same level when the car is in the off position. The current level in my gas tank is about 1/3 full. FYI the Temperature Gauge works fine so that I do not believe that the Voltage Regulator on the cluster pod is damaged in any way.

I had replaced the fuel sender about 5 years ago with a used one when my old one had also gone bad. The other thing is that for the last 2 years or so my gauge wasn't showing the right fuel levels. If I filled up the gas tank the gauge will go all the way to the top...and then the gauge will show 0.5 centimeters above the full level. Then eventually the gauge will go down slowly as the gas levels where decreased but will become a little bit erratic when the gas tank was bellow 1/3 level.

I opened up the trunk and I checked the wiring connectors which seemed fine. However the wiring at the tank assembly cover seem to be corroded and ready to crumble. In this case I didn't want to mess with it...since I had "been there" before. I also cleaned the ground point next to the connectors(bellow the plastic corner cover).

I went ahead and I ordered a sending unit from an Online junkyard. I already have a custom made "Special Tool" for the tank latch and it shouldn't be a big problem for me to replace it.

I am sure that this fuel sender unit problem is a common problem for those older 240s. I really don't believe is the fuel gauge itself. I checked the grounding nuts behind the gauge cluster and they seem fine.

I really didn't want to shell $120 for a new sending unit.

The guy from the Junk yard said that the gauge sender unit is the same from 83-87....Is this true? I miself thought the from 79-93 they where the same.

Any thoughts...

Thanks.....

Mike