labatyd

91 ranger 4 cyl

Gauge suddenly quit. Reads empty. Haven't crawled underneath yet to look for
obvious. Did check the fuse panel but found no blown fuses. I don't know
which circuit this would be on. This vehicle is like new with only 114K on
it. Anyone have a wiring diagram? Should be simple enough I expect though
would just like a glimpse of what's there.

TIA

bob urz

You could try autozone.com and try there electrical manual and
trouble shooting section.

Your going to have to drop the tank and id the tank wire.
If i were to guess, i would say corroded gauge wire at the tank,
bad ground at the tank, or bad sender.

Once you find the wire, you could insert a resistor in place of the
sender and see if the gauge reads to test. If you have some resistors,
try ground, 10 ohms, 50 ohms, 100 ohms and see what the gauge reads.
(all referenced to ground)

If trying this does not help, you might have a bad wire to the cluster
or bad cluster gauge.

good luck.

bob

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ed white

If it is a short bed Ranger, pulling the bed might actually be easier than
dropping the tank.


Ed

bruce l. bergman

And as always, look for a bolted service hatch in the bed, the
trunk, or under the back seat (as applicable to various vehicles) to
get to the fuel pump and fuel sender without dropping the tank.
Sometimes they think ahead, sometimes they don't...

If they didn't install a hatch, it is a selfish financial move by
the car maker, because most of the time the vehicle is long out of
warranty by the time the fuel pump or gauge becomes a problem.

The car maker could care less how much the repair will cost you,
they only worry about how much it will cost THEM.
--<< Bruce >>--

c. e. white

There is no hatch. But a Ranger bed is easy to remove (done it
personally, by myself). An F150 bed is little harder because of the
weight. When the fuel pump check valve started leaking on my 12 year
old F150, the shop I took it to initially planned to drop the tank,
but after working under the truck for a few minutes, they decided
pulling the bed was easier (I tried to tell them this in the first
place). 20 minutes later the bed was off, and replacing the fuel pump
was a breeze.

As for auto manufacturers not caring about what it costs you - if
costs them more to build a vehicle, it will cost you more to buy it.
Not counting VWs, in the last 30 years we have had to replace only one
fuel pump (and even then the fuel pump itself was not bad - just the
check valve which made for hard starting at times). Manufacturers are
most interested in pleasing the people who buy cars from them, not the
people who buy 15 year old used vehicles off a lot. If the dealer told
you a new car was going to cost $1000 more so that Billy Bob will find
it easier to work on in 15 years, would you think it was a good deal?

Ed

c. e. white

There is no hatch. But a Ranger bed is easy to remove (done it
personally, by myself). An F150 bed is little harder because of the
weight. When the fuel pump check valve started leaking on my 12 year
old F150, the shop I took it to initially planned to drop the tank,
but after working under the truck for a few minutes, they decided
pulling the bed was easier (I tried to tell them this in the first
place). 20 minutes later the bed was off, and replacing the fuel pump
was a breeze.

As for auto manufacturers not caring about what it costs you - if
costs them more to build a vehicle, it will cost you more to buy it.
Not counting VWs, in the last 30 years we have had to replace only one
fuel pump (and even then the fuel pump itself was not bad - just the
check valve which made for hard starting at times). Manufacturers are
most interested in pleasing the people who buy cars from them, not the
people who buy 15 year old used vehicles off a lot. If the dealer told
you a new car was going to cost $1000 more so that Billy Bob will find
it easier to work on in 15 years, would you think it was a good deal?

Ed

labatyd

finally got around to checking further. Seems the box will have to come off.
There is a short between the two wires from the tank. Found the connector
under the hood and worked both ways from it. Substituted a reostat for the
sending unit and the gauge tests fine. But almost zero resistance going to
the tank. I don't think there is any chance it will be in the harness. It
looks like new along the part that is visible.

labatyd

Finally found time to get this problem sorted out. Turns out the float is
made of a brass cylinder which snaps into the arm. In the grove where the
arm snaps there was a fairly large crack and one other fine crack nearly
opposite to it. A little cleaning, a soldering gun and all is fine.

The box is actually easy to remove. 6 bolts and three screws for the filler
pipe. There is a wiring connection which is easy to access once the box is
lifted a few inches. If it weren't for the 6 bolts being so seized up the
total change out of a fuel pump/sending unit would take not more than an
hour. Lifted the box with a hoist but I think two men could handle it
without to much difficulty. I finally heated 5 of the 6 spring nuts
underneath. The 6th was above the tank and not accessible so fought that one
out to the last thread. :-(
Ran a tap through each, lubed them well and back together in minutes.

labatyd

BTW, the sending unit resistance is about 15 ohms at empty and 160 ohms at
full.