VDO Fuel gauge

[Ajj205]

Hello

Nice to see a dedicated site back up and running- Hope it attracts the number of users as the old one as the help available was excellent. As a new owner of an 89 Se could anyone point me in the right direction to sort out wildly bouncing fuel gauge. Seem to remember reading about this on old site but cant find it now. Thanks in advance.

[Chris]

It depends what you mean about wildly bouncing?
If it is literally flicking about then you have a short in the wiring somewhere - look at the connections in the boot going into the fuel tank. You could temporarily unplug the sender wire but leave the earth connected to see if it still does it?
A gauge that swings from high to low, on cornering, but sits level when dthe car is being driven down a straight road, is suffering from the over sensitive sender unit. I found that turning left, the gauge went high and turning right it went low. The only cure I found for this was to keep over half a tank of petrol in it...

[Ajj205]

Cheers Chris

Gauge seems to flicker most of the time and move with the cars change of direction. Sounds like will be investigating this weekend.

[amarshall]

<ahem> - they all do that sir.

[dpr59]

<ahem> - they all do that sir.

Yes mine too...

[chrisw2811]

Was Angus looking at a bridging circuit for the sender to damp the signal down? I can't remember how far he got with it.
Mine bounces around too when less than half a tank. I've learned to live with it bouncing because if you corner hard right with a full tank of fuel the filler cap will leak some out. Even replacing the neoprene sealing ring doesn't fix the leak.
Must be another special feature!

[amarshall]

I used to have a leak from the filler cap. Cured it by getting a bag of assorted "O" rings from B&Q and replacing the one in the filler. I had to cut one with the right internal diameter down until it was a very snug fit (so snug that it's a bit hard to turn the key in the filler cap lock now).

I did find a possible bridging circuit, but one of the more northerly members was working on something more tailored to the Excel. As it is, I've learned to live with it - when the gauge shows 1/4 on a straight level road, I start looking for somewhere to fill up

[Ajj205]

Thanks all.

Begining to get the hang of this Lotus owning "they all do that sir ".
Will still be atacking it this weekend armed with the usual supplies of band aid and Stella Artois.

[andy b]

JUST GOT A NEW OLD STOCK FUEL GUAGE AT STONELEIGH AND IT HAS CURED THE PROBLEM.
THE VOLTAGE IS STABELISED BY A SMALL SHUNT COIL IN THE GUAGE AND THIS BURNS OUT STABELISING THE SUPPLY WILL RECTIFY THE PROBLEM IN THE WAY

[Redexcel]

<ahem> - they all do that sir.

Not so. Mine is as steady as a rock.

I used to have a TVR 350i which used the same VDO gauge. That really did bounce all over the place. Lotus must have put some sort of damping in the circuit.

Paul.