fuel gauge

[badasshybrid]

I took mine out for the first real time this year Tuesday (I have put it in the water to check the packing but thats about it) I put some Sta-bil and 93 in it before we went. I ran it for about 2 hours pulling the tube around. Then stopped for a little while and adjusted the carb a little because it was idleing a little to low in N and would die after a bit. I checked the gauge and it was still at 1/2 tank so I showed my wife how to drive and operate the boat and let her drive it for a while to get used to it (she has drove my bass boat ALOT even loaded and unloaded it as well so she has some knowledge of boats) I hooked up the line and threw it out, put on the new wake board, jumped in and swam out 60' to the end of the line. I waited for her to get ready and the boat wouldnt start. She tried and tried and it wouldnt start. I swam all the way back climbed in the boat and I couldnt get it to do anything as well. It would sputter and die thats it. I messed with it and messed with it nothing. I finally got it to start and had to feather the throttle to keep it running. I ran it around a little close to the ramp in case it died and wouldnt start back. I finally got it up to full throttle but it was a little weak so I ran it around for a while. I took it back to the dock and it would idle long enough for me to get the truck, loaded it up and brought it home, the whole time thinking I had some bad gas in it. I got on here and was reading about all of the vaper lock threads and thought it could have been that.

I went to Lowes and bought about 15 dollars in parts to make a fake a lake (1 good plunger, 1 metal garden hose quick disconnect, and 1 plastic garden hose end cap) I went home and drilled the plunger with a 1" paddle bit, drilled the cap with a 5/16" drill bit, stuck the quick disconnect in the plunger and put the cap on the inside. I hooked it up and tried to run it for a minute and it did the same thing as at the lake.

I took it drained the gas and it ended up only having less than 2 gallons in it with the gauge on 1/2 tank. I filled it with 10 gallons(gauge read 3/4 tank) of fresh 93 and put some sta-bil in it, turned on the hose, and started her up. The boat fired right up and ran smooth just like new again.



I know the gauge is reading wrong but could it be the gauge or the sending unit? How could I check it to find out which it is?

[DOCDRS]

first off what boat do you have ? put it in your signature........i had a 99 outback and the gg was a guide at best. the sensor is on the right side and when on the water i could go from full to empty just by standing on diff sides of the boat. fill the dang thing up before ya go out on the lake...25 gals should last 3 hours running wot. 10 gallons is not full its a 25 gallon tank.....i heard of some fill hose kink problems...but i would fill mine till the gas was sitting at the fill hole.......

[badasshybrid]

first off what boat do you have ? put it in your signature........i had a 99 outback and the gg was a guide at best. the sensor is on the right side and when on the water i could go from full to empty just by standing on diff sides of the boat. fill the dang thing up before ya go out on the lake...25 gals should last 3 hours running wot. 10 gallons is not full its a 25 gallon tank.....i heard of some fill hose kink problems...but i would fill mine till the gas was sitting at the fill hole.......

-99 outback
-I have already put it in the signature it will not work till I post again. If you go back and look I added it right after I posted this thread at 8:30pm.
-I know the gauge is a guide it should tell me F and E, I want to know how to fix it since it doesnt.
-I think you missed where I said I put gas in it before I went. Gauge read F when I left the station so I thought it was full. After 2 hours it was on 1/2 tank so I thought there was close to 1/2 tank left. Didnt think the gauge would be off by a whole 1/2 tank.
-25 gallons should last longer than only 3 hours, if I had to guess I only had 1/2 tank but was reading full and I ran that for over 3 hours.
-I know how much the tank holds, that wasnt what I asked. I asked " I know the gauge is reading wrong but could it be the gauge or the sending unit? How could I check it to find out which it is? "
-I know 10 gallons is not full, thats how much gas I had bought and took back to the house where I was working on the boat just so I could start it. And I was saying that after I put in 10 gallons the gauge read 3/4 tank which I knew was wrong.

[DOCDRS]

Does the gauge read 1/2 when the ignition power is off. Or does it read E?
At WOT wide open throttle the 350 carb will use about 8 gal per hour......less at lower rpm's thats where the 3 hours comes from.
Does your gauge read full when the tank is full?
Does it bounce around when you move from one side of the boat to the other. If it is moving from E to F then there is nothing wrong......these are wide shallow tanks and as such the sending unit is open to wide fluctuation...and good luck getting one to work any better. there are a lot of posts on this subject about this aspect. do a search and i don't believe anyone came up with a adequate solution that I have seen.
How long have you had the boat, Has the accuracy of the gauge changed since you got the boat , or did you just get it, I guess this is the most important ?

[badasshybrid]

Does the gauge read 1/2 when the ignition power is off. Or does it read E?
At WOT wide open throttle the 350 carb will use about 8 gal per hour......less at lower rpm's thats where the 3 hours comes from.
Does your gauge read full when the tank is full?
Does it bounce around when you move from one side of the boat to the other. If it is moving from E to F then there is nothing wrong......these are wide shallow tanks and as such the sending unit is open to wide fluctuation...and good luck getting one to work any better. there are a lot of posts on this subject about this aspect. do a search and i don't believe anyone came up with a adequate solution that I have seen.
How long have you had the boat, Has the accuracy of the gauge changed since you got the boat , or did you just get it, I guess this is the most important ?

With the power off it doesnt move so it would be way past the E position. I havent filled it to full yet since I found out it was messed up, but with 10 gallons in the tank the gauge was at 3/4 of a tank. I havent noticed it moving as people move around in the boat. I did notice the sending unit was in the middle of the tank though. I have had the boat for about a year. I have only had it on the water about 6 times and have tried to keep the gauge at around F and not really using it enough to get it down to 1/2 tank. I havent really noticed if the accuracy has changed, like I said I have always tried to keep it around F. Really didnt even know it was messed up till I got it out and ran it down to 1/2 tank.


I made me a manual fuel gauge to stick in the tank and can measure the level that way for now. I did it in 5 gallon increments so this will not happen again. I just wanted to know if it could be fixed.

Thanks for the help.





Fuel guages are a potentiometer system. They read strickly by a voltage given to them. You will need to find out the maker of the guage so you can cross check it to the amount of voltage required to move the needle to the different readings.

After you get this you can trouble shoot a lot easier.

EXP 12V makes the gauge read F 10V makes it ready E so 11V is 1/2 and so on.

Then you can fill the tank to the top and take a voltage reading at your gauge see what it says in relation to what your chart for the gauge reads. Then you can troubleshoot it as a bad gauge or a bad sending unit.

This also works in reverse if you knwo the maker of the sending unit. Take it out of the tank and you can raise and lower the float and watch on a volt meter the voltages change. This is the voltage it sends directly to the dash.

I will check into that. Being messed up like it is really bugs the crap out of me.


Thanks

[viking]

I don't know if this applies but my buddy has a powerstroke diesel and it just quite him the other day. He thought something major was wrong but turned out it was out of fuel. His gauge read 1/3 a tank.

He found out that the "low sulfur" diesel plays havoc with the float or whatever is in the tank sending the gauge the signal. It gels or corrodes it.

Maybe this damn Ethenol does the same thing on our gas guzzling Indmar engines and systems?

[badasshybrid]

Thanks for the help guys I think I have the gauge figured out now.



Now the problem is:

The boat will run like new when I first start it. I ran it around pulling the tube for about 2 hours only stopping it once and it started right up. After I did the tubing thing I stopped and did some kneeboarding and wakeboarding. After a couple crashes and stopping the boat for a few minutes in between times it started running like crap again. While running it acts like it stops feeding fuel for a minute and then starts.

For example: I started to plane on the wakeboard and the boat just died in the water all of the sudden I was jerked out of the water because it started pulling hard again. My buddy was driving and he said that the throttle was never moved, he said he powered up to pull me up and the boat sputtered and started to die then it started to pull again like nothing was wrong with the throttle never being moved. And yes it has fuel in it this time.

Any ideas on what this could be ?

[viking]

maybe some bad fuel or water in the fuel. Did you put in some heat or fuel treatment? Might try that with some new high octane and see what happens. Fuel filter is always a cheap replacement too. That'd be the easy fixes. If not might be bad fuel pump but would think it would just stop working.

[badasshybrid]

maybe some bad fuel or water in the fuel. Did you put in some heat or fuel treatment? Might try that with some new high octane and see what happens. Fuel filter is always a cheap replacement too. That'd be the easy fixes. If not might be bad fuel pump but would think it would just stop working.


The only thing I did was drain out as much of the old gas I could get out then filled it with some stabil with 93 octane. I did put on a new filter. It did fine for awhile of straight running. But when I started stopping and going it started running like crap. It doesnt seem like the fuel pump but right now I have no idea. I talked to a guy that said to rebuild the carb, but it seems to run too good at times to rebuild it.

What would be good to try other that the stabil and 93 octane??

[badasshybrid]

Any more ideas?????????????????

[BensonWdby]

On a sie note. Last week I was in a relatviely new MC with the MC dealer. Their gauge? Lift up the back sundeck and inspect the level in the tank (they have plastic tanks so you can see the level. I asked him about fuel gauge and he basically said gas gauges in boats are pointless..