Club 80-90 Forums

i guess it pretty common for the fuel gauge to change ie when turning left or right and speeding up or slowing down as my 86 golf does it to but can the gauge actually go higher than the amount of fuel in the tank or is the highest it goes the amount of fuel in the tank still. any feedback would be great.

regards phil

As the petrol moves around in the tank, the fuel float will move up and down as well but the guage is slow to react to these changes (designed that way) and probably won't change much but if you park with the van sloping to the left ie. on a cambered road, then the petrol will move to the left of the tank and make it appear like you have more fuel. If you park with the van sloping to the right (drivers side), the opposite will happen and it will look like you're running out of fuel!

I discovered the hard way that when the gauge shows 1/4, your van will stop VERY soon.
They're not over accurate, so I don't let mine drop below 1/2 these days

is there something more modern we could use to gauge the petrol level??

please dont be a smart a*** and say the milometer!

andisnewsyncro wrote:I discovered the hard way that when the gauge shows 1/4, your van will stop VERY soon.
They're not over accurate, so I don't let mine drop below 1/2 these days

Accurate no. Seen my guage on nil at times (past reserve and no needle movement at all) but never actually run out. Probably my luck that mine says empty when its 1/4 full.

oh and my milometer and clock have stopped working any idea's how to fix a fuse or something maybe i think the milometer stopped working when i got a new battery?!!

Milometer is probably one of the gears moved along its shaft and no longer making contact. Known fault, Dab of superglue sorted mine.

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"I discovered the hard way that when the gauge shows 1/4, your van will stop VERY soon.
They're not over accurate, so I don't let mine drop below 1/2 these days"

I'll second that.

My velle doesnt run out until well below the red... the syncro too... so at a 1/4 its wrong... might be able to adjust the sender by bending the arm... could be that its sitting on the bottom of the tank before the sensor has reached the lower end of its travel... but it is a tank out job...

toomanytoys wrote:My velle doesnt run out until well below the red... the syncro too... so at a 1/4 its wrong... might be able to adjust the sender by bending the arm... could be that its sitting on the bottom of the tank before the sensor has reached the lower end of its travel... but it is a tank out job...

Good point Si, but to be honest I've got used to it now, ran out once on the way to Dover for a ferry and won't do it again !! Everything else fuel wise seems ok so it doesn't seem worth the hassle, I never like running things too empty anyway, I'm always moaning at Laura for having no petrol in hers

Bet it stays on full for ages then....?

toomanytoys wrote:Bet it stays on full for ages then....?

Probably longer than most 2.1 s

To be honest I've not let it drop far below 1/2 since running out, but when that happened, everything looked good; steady gauge movement over the trip down to Dover, and then it suddenly seemed to drop very quickly from 1/2 to 1/4 and as I was saying "we need to find a petrol station" we lost power and coasted into a layby...
There are no fuel stops twixt M25 and Dover is the lesson I learned, and to be honest I was so excited about the trip I was possibly not watching the gauge as closely as I should have been.

At least I know now I always have enough petrol in to get a fair distance, should the mood take me

bro if it went that quick it might have been chucking fuel down the carb like a wrong'un or something wrong with the fuel guage. mine goes to past the red and it's definitely empty at this point, i have a stuffed old fuel filter and an experience of a broken down van to remember it by lol.

I can get mine sitting on the empty stop and still only manage to squeeze in 54 litres.
Flat shallow tanks are a PITA.

i am starting to think that there's probably nobody here that hasn't had one of these vans and hasn't experienced something with the fuel guage lol.

BUT IT'S A SMALL PRICE TO PAY !!!