Questions about Defender 90

[cpas]

Hi.
I have just bought a Defender and have a couple of problems:
1. I have extremely rusty door bottoms (especially frame) and am too tight to pay £100+VAT + postage to have them refurbished. Has anyone successfully repaired theirs?
2. The fuel guage doesn't work and the light stays on. Is this likely to be a short in the feed wire to the sender unit, or a faulty sender unit?

Any advice would be gratefully received.

Thank you.

[Freypal]

cpas said:

Hi.
I have just bought a Defender and have a couple of problems:
1. I have extremely rusty door bottoms (especially frame) and am too tight to pay £100+VAT + postage to have them refurbished. Has anyone successfully repaired theirs?
2. The fuel guage doesn't work and the light stays on. Is this likely to be a short in the feed wire to the sender unit, or a faulty sender unit?

Any advice would be gratefully received.

Thank you.

1. Do you mean rusty or corroded? The frame of the door is steel but the skin is an aluminium alloy (birmabright) and as such they suffer electrolytic corrosion. If its that it will be white and flakey. If its just the steel frame then its nothing difficult as its just made from steel box section. A few minutes with a welder and it's sorted.

2. Depending what age it is, if you can see the tank (mine is under the drivers seat) you can remove the two wires entering the in tank sender and short them together. If the wiring is ok then the gauge should read full. If not then your wiring is at fault.