Fuel gauge stopped working

[fergie666]

The fuel gauge on my mini stopped working the other day. (1986 mini city)

I had a look inside the petrol tank with a torch and the float system seems fine and looks pretty new, i can see that the float is still attached and floating as it should.

Can anyone advise me where to start checking ? Is there a fuse for the gauge somewhere ?

Thanks

[joan or ark]

check out the earthg. also if you can get hold of a spare gauge check that. is there power getting to the gauge?

[cambiker71]

The sender units are notorious for packing up, look at the side of the tank in the boot, there'll be two wires, one connected to a tag joined straight to the middle of the round sender unit (earth connector) and the other to a slightly raised connector. Switch the ignition on,take the wire off the raised connection and touch it to the earth wire on the sender(there's no real current so don't worry about making a spark near the fuel tank) the gauge should quickly rise up to the full position. If this happens the wiring is more than likely fine and the sender is usually at fault (£20ish part cost)if the gauge doesn't move try earthing the wire directly to the negative terminal on the battery (extra wire needed) if it now rises you have a fault with the earthing of the tank (the other wire on the sender)so check or replace the connections as needeed. If none of these work then you'll need to start checking the connections etc starting from the gauge ignition positive feeds. My money is on the sender unit though.

Edited by cambiker71 on Friday 24th October 18:52

[fergie666]

Thanks guys, will get a look at it over the weekend

[fergie666]

Well i had a check over it today between the showers of rain.

Gauge doesn't move during any of the checks.

Black wire from sender:

between it and earth point = 40 ohms
between it and battery negative = 19 ohms

Green & black wire to fuel gauge:

between it and earth point = 67 ohms

Looks to me like the gauge is borked :/ can anyone confirm this from the readings i got ?

thanks

[cambiker71]

Not sure to be honest, but having some resistance may be a good thing at least its not open circuit across the gauge, do you have power to the gauge or voltage regulator? Also does the temp gauge work? They both take power from the voltage regulator on the back of the dash. I'd be taking the dash clocks out to check for this before buying things, unless you have an aftermarket full width dash, it's fairly easy to get at once the front cover has been removed. A haynes book of lies will give you a good idea how to remove things.