Fuel Level Sender

I noticed that the fuel gauge never moved past the empty mark so I decided to pull and clean the fuel level sender. It has been sitting in old gasoline for 20 years so I figured it was due for a cleaning.

Here is what it looked like when I pulled the black cover in the trunk.

I spent some time cleaning up this area and then unscrewed the hex screwed and pulled the sending unit free. After some researching online, I fashioned a tool that would allow me to unscrew the bottom bolt.

After that success, things went downhill quickly. In trying to remove the outer sleeve, I broke one of the very fine resistance wires. I removed the wire and solder from both sides so I could measure and replace it. The original wire had a resistance of 67Ω/ft. I found a nichrome wire on amazon that has a similar resistance.

I soldered in this wire, put the sleeve back on and wired it in to the car. I measured the resistance with the float at the bottom and top and it measured 68Ω and 6.7Ω respectively. Clark's Garage has slightly different numbers, but these felt close enough.