Gas Gauge issue - needle bouncing?
 

Anyone have any ideas why my gas gauge needle is bouncing regardless of how much gas is in the 100 gal. tank. I opened my dash panel thinking maybe a loose wire, but everthing was tight. I have to find access to the sending unit to see if those wires are tight. What else could it be?

My guages are Gaffrig which were made by Livorsi prior to name change. If it is the gauge I would like to have it repaired as opposed to buying a new one because I would like to have the names match.

Thanks for the advice.

I think you may be on to something with your sending unit. Does it bounce when moving or all of the time? If it bounces only when you are moving (like mine) I would have to say it is just moving with the sloshing of the gas. If it bounces all of the time there maybe a problem with the sending unit although, if the gauge works, the sending unit wouldn't be bad. You could have some corrosion on the wire ends causing a bad connection. Good luck and let us know what the out come is.
Anthony

Anyone with any suggestions? Thanks!

Take a piece of wire and jump the positive terminal of your tach to the sender terminal of the tach for a split second. If your tach maxes out and returns to 0 its ok. Next locate and remove your tank sender, re-attach the wires to the sender and test it while observing the gauge. If it functions properly then it has probably become sloppy with age and should be replaced. You should also make a new ground connection at the sender.

There are several different styles of fuel senders, some are better than others, do some homework, don't just buy the generic sending unit at west marine first as it may not be the best choice.

get a tube type sender (inductive)

http://shopping.rexmar.com/Merchant2..._Code=centroid

I had the same problem on my 22zx and it was a bad sender. If its easy to get to the sender pull it out and manually move it and watch the gauge.

I had that same problem. The gauge became eratic in the fall. The following spring they didn't work at all. New floats on the sender and no more problem. I'm thinking the floats started absorbing gas and became eratic in the tank.

Pat

I checked the sending unit today and the ground wire was a little lose. I disconnected both wires and cleaned up with steel wool. That seems to have done the trick. I filled the tank gas on my way back to marina today so I will see how it goes the next outging. Thanks for the suggestions.