Leroy the EK Ute

Post photos of your pride and joy, or updates on your rebuild!

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thebrotherj
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Re: Leroy the EK Ute

Post by thebrotherj »

Fuel level sender night tonight: got it out ok with some cautious screwdriverin’ after a day soaking. I even found replacement screws in my parts jars so I’ll make up a new gasket and will be back in business.

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Looks rough on top but the unit is actually intact and works ok. The wire was snapped so sender is an unknown quantity. Repaired the wire and ensured the insulator was intact. Happy to say it tested sort of ok... multimeter’s up at my bro’s, but my trusty test light dimmed across the float’s sweep. Yay.

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However, Jodie’s tale over lunch last week of her first date with Bill (Leroy’s last owner) involving a walk back to Medlow Bath for fuel when they didn’t make it home to Blackheath... was explained once I plugged the sender into the gauge.

first photo is ignition off:

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Sender at it’s lowest level (tank empty):

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Sender at highest level (tank full):

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It runs past full but never reaches empty. My question at this point is: without dismantling the fragile sender, should I try running a small in-line resistor to trick the gauge into reading lower at all times (and therefore accurately)? Or is there a neat trick involving moving the gauge itself?

Love to hear what folks have done to rectify this...

Cheers, Joe


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Blacky
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Re: Leroy the EK Ute

Post by Blacky »

you could try bending the float arm more ??
I started with nothing and still have most of it left.


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59wagon
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Re: Leroy the EK Ute

Post by 59wagon »

Hi Joe, going by what you’ve described, you may just have a “zero” error. I’ll assume your empty and full are with the lever at the mechanical stops. In the pic below, you can bend the lever from A to B (towards the full stop) a teeny weeny bit at a time until you get to where you’re happy. Don’t bend it as much as shown by the red lines, though!

ImageImage

By doing this, the lever pivot will drop further before hitting the empty stop and read lower than it does now. Likewise, when approaching full, the lever will hit the full stop sooner and read lower.
If you can wait until you get a meter, the resistance should be from 0 to 30 ohms - yours should still have a 30 ohm difference, but it currently may be reading something like 5 to 35 ohms.
By adding a resistor in series your error will be worse, and by adding a resistor in parallel you could get either the empty or full close but the other end will be out. Hope this makes sense.

Cheers,

John


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thebrotherj
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Re: Leroy the EK Ute

Post by thebrotherj »

Blacky wrote:you could try bending the float arm more ??
Thought of that, but the issue is not how low the float gets in the tank, it’s that when the arm reaches maximum travel (ie: hits the stop on the sender), the gauge reads about 1/8 tank, rather than zero.

That make sense?

I’m not going to disassemble the sender cos the top’s disintegrating... so I’m thinking of a dodgy way to change the signal voltage to the gauge.


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thebrotherj
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Re: Leroy the EK Ute

Post by thebrotherj »

59wagon wrote:Hi Joe, going by what you’ve described, you may just have a “zero” error. I’ll assume your empty and full are with the lever at the mechanical stops. In the pic below, you can bend the lever from A to B (towards the full stop) a teeny weeny bit at a time until you get to where you’re happy. Don’t bend it as much as shown by the red lines, though!

ImageImage

By doing this, the lever pivot will drop further before hitting the empty stop and read lower than it does now. Likewise, when approaching full, the lever will hit the full stop sooner and read lower.
If you can wait until you get a meter, the resistance should be from 0 to 30 ohms - yours should still have a 30 ohm difference, but it currently may be reading something like 5 to 35 ohms.
By adding a resistor in series your error will be worse, and by adding a resistor in parallel you could get either the empty or full close but the other end will be out. Hope this makes sense.

Cheers,

John


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Yes perfect sense. I was thinking of a parallel situation but couldn’t quite wrap my head around how to convince the gauge to go lower. If I could do that simply, I wouldn’t care about so much about what it read when full!

What you describe re: 5 - 35ohms sounds right, I imagine the sweep is out of whack inside. I was afraid of messing with the lower stop but if you say so! Haha... I’ll give that a go tomorrow evening.

Thanks heaps John!
Joe




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thebrotherj
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Re: Leroy the EK Ute

Post by thebrotherj »

Blacky wrote:you could try bending the float arm more ??
Ahh I see what you mean now Blacky, thanks to John’s piccies. I’m a little slow on the uptake! 🤪ImageImage


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59wagon
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Re: Leroy the EK Ute

Post by 59wagon »

Hey mate, I just had another look. It’d be easier if you bent the lever in the same direction as I said earlier, but at the short bit that comes out of the unit
Image


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thebrotherj
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Re: Leroy the EK Ute

Post by thebrotherj »

59wagon wrote:Hey mate, I just had another look. It’d be easier if you bent the lever in the same direction as I said earlier, but at the short bit that comes out of the unit
Image


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Agreed, that looks like the ticket. Thanks again for this Image


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thebrotherj
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Re: Leroy the EK Ute

Post by thebrotherj »

A bit of fiddling with the fuel sender arm as per the suggestions above and I’ve found the lower limit. It’s pointing at zero on the gauge now, that’ll do me.

Image

Cheers, Joe


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59wagon
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Re: Leroy the EK Ute

Post by 59wagon »

Good news, Joe. Is it far off at the full stop?
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thebrotherj
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Re: Leroy the EK Ute

Post by thebrotherj »

59wagon wrote: Wed Mar 07, 2018 11:12 pm Good news, Joe. Is it far off at the full stop?
Yes mate, it's also lower at the top, on the high side of the 'full' dot.
Bending the arm at that short section at the very top was a little stressful as it was stiffer than I thought it would be and was worried about the little fuse/solder joint where the float arm attached to the rod that comes out of the sender.
I actually wound up using a points file on the lower stop to get the last little bit of travel. Once I saw clear air between the lower stop and the float arm (ie the sweep inside the unit reached it's lower limit) I then straightened the arm until it hit the bottom stop at the same time as the sender unit inside.
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59wagon
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Re: Leroy the EK Ute

Post by 59wagon »

:thumbsup:
In the Shed
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Re: Leroy the EK Ute

Post by In the Shed »

thebrotherj wrote: Wed Mar 07, 2018 10:42 pm A bit of fiddling with the fuel sender arm as per the suggestions above and I’ve found the lower limit. It’s pointing at zero on the gauge now, that’ll do me.

Image

Cheers, Joe


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Hi Joe
Seeing pics of your fuel gauge jogged my memory of something I spotted on eBay. A fuel gauge like yours was listed (now sold $202) as super rare VDO type that apparently matched the elusive VDO FB or EK clock.

The seller stated the needle pivot pin was special. Must admit I had never looked that close at my gauges, but of the 6 or so I have none are like yours. Hopefully the below link works.

https://m.ebay.com.au/itm/Holden-FB-EK- ... cvip-panel

Regards
Stephen
A day in the shed beats a day at work!
In the Shed
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Re: Leroy the EK Ute

Post by In the Shed »

Hi All
This is style fuel gauge I have in FB & EK.


Hey Joe
Wanna swap ya fuel gauge for a non super rare one that doesnt work??? :shock:

Stephen
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Non rare type
Non rare type
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A day in the shed beats a day at work!
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thebrotherj
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Re: Leroy the EK Ute

Post by thebrotherj »

In the Shed wrote: Thu Mar 08, 2018 1:55 pm Hi All
This is style fuel gauge I have in FB & EK.


Hey Joe
Wanna swap ya fuel gauge for a non super rare one that doesnt work??? :shock:

Stephen
yeah nah :wave: :lol:
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