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S/W fuel sender does not work

JackinMichigan

Well Known Member
The fuel sender in the left tank was stuck. Bought a new one. Removed the old (which is not that old) and it sticks at the top of its travel. (full tank)

Took the new one out of it's box and it sticks too. If you lift the lever to the full tank position, it sticks. Gravity is not strong enough to let the lever fall. Once you pull the lever down approximately 20% of it's travel, it is then free.

Obviously, we are not going to install this sending unit to just encounter the same problem. I am ordering another and hope it works.

Anyone else encounter this problem?
 
Make sure the rod is full seated in the plastic holder. It should ?click? in. Mine took a fair amount of pressure to get fully seated in the channel. IIRC I used pliers to squeeze the rod in.
 
Not Clear How This Effects Travel

I will inspect it thoroughly when I am back to the hangar, but right now I am unclear how this has much effect.
 
I had the same problem and saw that I could tweak the tension on one of the arms can?t remember which one would have to look at it again
 
This seems like an issue with the rod. The senders are pretty simple plastic devices and I don't see how they could have that much extra tension. However, if you apply an un-natural force on the plastic parts, I could easily see how it can bind. I suspect that your bend in the rod is either not exactly 90* or the bend radius is not tight enough. The bend needs to be pretty tight in order to not distort the small plastic arm once the rod is snapped in.

Given the problem repeats with two different units, I am convinced you have a problem with the bend in the arm.

Put the rod in a vice and make the bend with a hammer or heavy flat piece. You cant have any real internal radius or you will squeeze out the ID of the plastic piece and cause binding.

Larry
 
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Put the rod in a vice and make the bend with a hammer or heavy flat piece. You cant have any real internal radius or you will squeeze out the ID of the plastic piece and cause binding.

Larry

I did as you suggested. I clamped the rod in a vise and made sure it was bent at a sharp 90, then I took some Scotch Brite and polished the rod as much as possible.

And .... it worked!! Works like a charm now. Thank you for your advice, I truly didn't think that was going to fix it. But it did.
 
I did as you suggested. I clamped the rod in a vise and made sure it was bent at a sharp 90, then I took some Scotch Brite and polished the rod as much as possible.

And .... it worked!! Works like a charm now. Thank you for your advice, I truly didn't think that was going to fix it. But it did.

Glad i could help.
 
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