1970 Mach 1 Fuel Gauge Issues

70 Mach

New Member
Jun 13, 2024
1
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1
Western PA
Hello All,
Last year I purchased a 1970 Mach 1, believe it or not but at my wife's request since I sold my original one to buy her an engagement ring 44 years ago. As my original one from back in the 70's the fuel gauge in the dash didn't work. I ordered a new sender from CJ Pony and installed it, during this operation I noticed that the one I removed looked to be new also, the tank in the car also looked to be a recent replacement. Once completed I check the gauge and it still didn't work. I grounded the stem of the sending unit to the frame without any change. I decided to send it to my local garage to see if they could figure it out what was wrong. I told them that I hadn't tried grounding the sender wire to see if the gauge worked, which they did, and the original worked fine. They drained the tank pulled out the sending unit and tested it outside of the tank and it worked fine, actually they both worked. They reinstalled it back into the tank and it didn't work. they looked into the tank as best as they could and actually raised the float some and got a reading. (they did check to make sure the float wasn't leaking gas into the brass ball).

Has anyone come across this problem before? I would hate to purchase another tank and end up with the same problem.

Thank you!
 
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Try running [your own] set of wires from the sender to the gauge, [bypassing] the stock wiring. Run the grounds for the sender [and] the gauge, directly to the battery ground post for this test.

Feed power to the sender directly from battery power.


If this works, you have a wiring problem or bad ground at either the sender, gauge, or both. Replace the sending wire from the sender to the gauge and clean or replace the grounds.

If it [doesn't] work then it is likely that resistor in the gauge is bad. At that point, you would need to repair or replace the the gauge.