Gas gauge

[kevin32]

Have 1932 Buick series 50 have problem with gas gauge when turned on gauge goes to full and stays there , do have wiring diagram just wondering if there is a bad ground or something else, is there a ground wire on tank in harness , have checked all connections on guage all looks ok thanks for any information, Kevin

[neil morse]

If you search on the forum, you will find several helpful threads about problems with gas gauges.  Your situation sounds like a bad ground for sure.  You will find a wire that goes back from the gauge to the sender.  If you ground that wire, your gauge should go to empty.  That will confirm that at you have a bad ground, and will also confirm that your dash unit is good.  In a lot of cars (my '41 being one of them), the sender was grounded by the fuel line.  If somewhere in the history of the car someone puts a piece of rubber hose where the steel fuel line connects to the sender (which was the case in my car), the sender will no longer be grounded.  The solution is to run a dedicated ground wire from the sender to the frame (or some other good ground).

 

But that's not the end of it.  Your sender may still not be working.  The only way to really get to the bottom of the problem is to drop the tank and check out the sender.  You will need to do that anyway to install a dedicated ground wire.

 

Here's the section on my "Me and My Buick" thread where I go over the fuel gauge fix.  (Click on the arrow in the upper right hand corner to get to the right post).  But as I said, you will find a lot of other discussions on the forum if you do a quick search.

 

 

[kevin32]

Did check line at tank is metal going into sender no rubber connection, so could this still be a bad ground one sender is there another way of checking it 

[Bloo]

On 8/3/2022 at 1:54 PM, kevin32 said:

Did check line at tank is metal going into sender no rubber connection,

If you depend on that I think you are going to have a bad time.

 

On 8/3/2022 at 1:54 PM, kevin32 said:

is there another way of checking it 

Not really. @neil morse's post is spot on. These gauges peg when you disconnect the sender. That's half of it. When you ground the sender wire, they go to empty. That's the other half.

 

If it does go to empty when you test it by grounding the sender wire to a good ground (like the body or frame), the problem is either the sender or the tank ground. If it does not go to empty, then either the wire going forward to the gauge is broken, or the problem is in the gauge or dash.

 

Edited August 11, 2022 by Bloo (see edit history)

[Splane]

Try a short wire with alligator clips on each end, connect one end directly on the gas tank and the other end somewhere on the car possibly the bumper. Make sure you are down to bare metal when connecting wire ends.