How much time will it take?

[ORCoaster]

I made the mistake of putting 5 gallons of fuel into my tank as I was nearing the 300-plus mile mark and the needle didn't seem to be in the right place.  I don't drive much a day so it takes a while for me to get that many miles on the tank.

After I filled it up I realized that what I needed to do was drop the tank and service the sender. 

So my question is:  How long should I plan on timewise to drop the tank in the future and clean up that sending unit.  The gauge on the dash seems fine as I apply 12 VDC to it, the sweep is all the way across to the full mark. 

[fatmobile]

Is this the MK2?
 You reach the senser in the trunk. No need to drop the tank.

[Dennis Froelich]

Most likely his VW Pickup.

[ORCoaster]

Yes, the 81 Pick me up is the one I need to drop and do some R/M on the sender.

[fatmobile]

That's hard to tell how much time it would take.
 Probably an hour to drop it.
 Then you have to pull the sender and deal with that.
 If none of the lines are brittle,... 2 to 3 hours?

[ORCoaster]

I don't have to wait to use up the fuel in the tank as I thought.  I have a spare aluminum tank that I used for my WVO in the Rabbit that will hold 12 gallons.  I can drain the Pickup tank into it and then do the needed work. 

I might put the sender I had for that tank in if it will fit. 

I may need to change the fuel gauge to the other as well.

 Some senders are specific resistance and such.  Mixing and matching senders to gauges does not work all the time.

[fatmobile]

I think some rabbit sender parts can be swapped onto the pickup sender.
 Maybe the resister bar might swap over, it's been awhile.

[ORCoaster]

I am hoping it is just in need of cleaning and not a replacement.  But they do tend to get all corroded and fall apart at the windings of the resistor. 

[ORCoaster]

I found the time today to at least start on the removal of the fuel tank to possibly repair what I thought was a bad sending unit.

I was able to drain the remaining gallons of fuel into a five-gallon can by pulling the two lines going to and from the filter and IP.  I capped them off as soon as I got the line free as I expected at least one to have fuel in it as I had just run the engine to get the truck up on some ramps.  But nothing really came pouring out at me.  Thankfully, I was prepared with safety glasses and a big rag, and a properly sized cap for the metal line.

I dropped the tank easily enough but even before I did all that I checked the connections of the sender in two ways.  One with a meter and the resistance was nearly 60 ohms.  Then I put a jumper on the connector coming from the cab and was able to see a full tank on the gauge in short order.  So I get the tank out from under the truck and hammer off the sender unit from the tank.  It just locks on with a gasket between the tank and the plate of the unit. 

I didn't see a lot of debris in the tank and the sending unit was not defective in any way.  Nice and smooth operation all the way across the range of motion.  Ohms measured from 5 and full to 30 at empty.  So getting that 60 initially means I have work to do on those connections when I go to put it back together.  Otherwise, I will have a low reading on the gauge and more fuel in the tank than I would expect for the reading.  Not a bad thing as I would fill up and still probably have 3 gallons in the tank. 

What really amazed me was the presence of a piece of 11/32 inch diameter hose with a double hose barb on it.  It was about 2 feet long and I fished it out pretty easily.  I thought for a while about why that was there and how it would be connected to the tank in some fashion.  Well, does anyone care to throw out ideas on why it was in there?

My theory;  prior to me buying this truck about 4 years ago someone took the liberty of sticking that hose in there for the purposes of removing the fuel.  When they went to pull the hose out it got hung up on the tank inside and they just pulled the rest of the hose off the barb. 

It has just recently been getting moved about and laying on the sending unit arm.  That would cause me to have less of a tank of fuel and then suddenly I could gain half a tank just by going around a wide turn.  So I am glad to have that out.  Now I just need to filter out the little bit of rust that is in the diesel fuel and return the tank to service.  Diesel prices just dropped here about 30 cents over the weekend so it is time to go fill up. 

I spent about two hours out there diddling with the whole thing and I think it will take me at least 45 mins to put it back up.  I will have to drag out more tools and some filtering stuff so I bet it will be about another two hours to complete the task of fixing this errant gauge. 

[ORCoaster]

I finished the tank drop and got it back up today.  Getting that silly rubber piece that the inlet tube goes through from the tank fill area was a bugger.  I didn't notice it till today but it was not seated in its proper place so I decided I could just work it back on with a pair of big screwdrivers.

Not so, it was so hard it really didn't want to move much and catch that little rubber edge on the metal of the body.  I finally got it on so maybe now it will give me 50 mpg?  I doubt it. 

Now I need a tank full of the expensive stuff.  Thankfully our local diesel prices are dropping to just a little under 6.00 a gallon.  I have an extra 5-gallon tank to fill along with the one on the truck. 

At least I now know where 3 gallons of fuel shows on the gauge.  It looks like a little less than 1/4 of a tank.  So it is close.