318ti.org forum - Gas guage acting strange

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Quote:

Originally Posted by Newbomb Turk (Post 391278)

Paul, it’s not the gauge. Instrument cluster is new. I’m betting on a bad pin in the blue connector on the back of the cluster head.

Could be - you're lucky if that's so; easy to diagnose, as I've heard that the cluster is a sealed unit.

11/21/19
As it turned out, one of the sender wires under the seat was chewed up. Absolutely baffled as to what happened. The boy drives the car everyday. When the gauge first started to act up, he would give the dash a shot with his fist over the fuel gauge, then it would work. I pulled cluster out, checked all wiring, took apart each wire connector, removed each pin connector from connector. Checked all were tight. Checked fuel gauge driver motor for visual defects. Bought new cluster, figuring it was a bad gauge driver motor, due to him being able to get gauge working with a fist bump to the top of the dash/cluster. After installing new cluster and nothing happening, I was pissed... swapped out clusters again and started looking further down the harness, behind brake pedal.
Another issue we had was a fuel vapor smell outside the car. Being that we replaced fuel pump/sender, we pulled the rear seat and round panel to check that our connections were still good on the fuel pump we had just installed, that’s when we found the sender wire chewed up..about a 1/2” missing. I guess the both of us are blind. Amazed, neither of us saw the chewed wire, which was 2” from the plug we disconnected from the pump.
I’m still trying to figure how it worked after the fist bump, with the problem being under the rear seat. Anyone need a 187k dash cluster? I have one for sale.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Newbomb Turk (Post 391308)

I’m still trying to figure how it worked after the fist bump, with the problem being under the rear seat. Anyone need a 187k dash cluster? I have one for sale.

Yep, that one's a mystery. Sounds like maybe you've got meeces.

Quote:

Originally Posted by 318ti97 (Post 75491)

My gas guage tends to suddenly drop all the way to "nil" and jump back again. At time it sticks in the "nil" position until I bang on the dash board right above it. Then, it tends to go back to the correct reading.

Any help..........

Thanks!

Not sure if your problem is the same as mine, but when I bought mine it did a similar thing. I just filled the tank up a few times to max with the proper gas, and waalaa, the guage worked. The float was probably stuck with old gas turning to varnish around the post.

You might try Seafoam in the gas and drive the hell out of it. Creates a lot of smoke but if it's a bad gas issue it will clean it out pretty quick. Just don't do it near your neighbors or they will think your car is a clunker.