E30 Zone

The fuel gauge on my '90 325i stopped working and using info from search of Tech Help I tracked it down to the sender on LHS of tank. Checked the sender with ohmmeter and it was max resistance. Took it out of tank and dismantled it. There is a small nut (5.5mm) on the bottom that allows you to remove outer aluminium sleeve. Be careful sliding this sleeve off as there are very thin wires inside. There is a float that slides up and down the rod that the 5.5mm nut screws on to, which has contacts that slide on the thin wire. This wire had broken where it went around the plastic spacer at the bottom of rod. I managed to solder a short piece of copper wire onto end of shortest side and twisted the ends of both bits of wire around plastic spacer giving them enough tension to prevent wires moving. Put it all back together and it worked. Fitting the wire into the contacts on the float takes a bit of care.

You might ask why I repaired it when I could have bought a new one or got another from scrappy, well a) I'm a cheapskate b) would have had to put it back together anyway to use car c) I'm a cheapskate.

nice one mate, what was your orgional problem?

It was the broken wire in the sender that was causing fault. This wire must be resistance wire and is very thin so couldn't just replace it with ordinary wire.

cheapskate is good. it leaves the money free for the more demanding problems.