I've attached a sketch of a cover plate to cover the hole up where the fuel sender goes that may be useful to someone. I got this made so I could still drive while my sender was supposedly getting reconditioned. (just heard they cant fix it - bummer.)
I went a bit overboard with the decimal points but the holes arent equally spaced as you may expect. (obviously so the sender only bolts on in one orientation.)
I'm onto a cheap 0-30 ohm sender from the states that I'm hoping I'll be able to attach to this plate. Will let everyone know if it was successful when I get it hopefully in 3-4 weeks.
Took longer than expected to receive the new fuel sender. It looks promising.
It is depth adjustable and it appears that the cover plate that came with it will bolt straight up to the tank- how lucky is that?. Must have been a standardised pattern for vintage tanks.
Will try & fit it over easter.
Sorry to say but I havent been able to get the sender to work properly.
I hooked it up out of the tank & it confirms that the dash gauge works well. The problem is that the ek tank is so shallow & also that the sender unit is actually recessed into the tank which creates a shoulder that you have to clear. The rotation of the float arm from empty to full is 98 degrees and with the space available as well as the recess edge to contend with I couldnt get it to work properly.
The best I could do was get it so that it shows half full when its full & empty when empty. I tried drawing a cross section through the tank & bending the float wire in different ways but couldnt crack it. If I could have mounted it horizontal instead of vertical it would have worked but then you couldnt get it in the tank hole. What a shame because the damn thing had the exact same bolt pattern. Oh wel, better than no gauge at all until I can get an old one that works.
Terry, I've shortened it to 40mm, problem is when its too short it fouls with the recess on the way up, any longer and you cant get the centre high enough to ensure that it will show empty.
I layed it out to scale and it just wont work perfectly unfortunately.
I guess this is why the original ones have the arc horizontally mounted.
My last chance is to offset the whole unit so that its not central with the cover plate, ie moved towards the centre of the car. This way I may clear the recess with the float and get it to show nearly full when full. Thats as long as I can get it in when that is done. For now I'll be happy to know when its getting near empty.
