MGB 79 MGB Fuel Level Sending Unit

[boxofparts]

Fuel gage works some of the time.

Can you repair a sending unit or just replace?

Sending unit and tank do not appear to have ever been serviced.

Looks to be $30 at Moss.

 

[tony barnhill]

Just replace it.

 

[twigworker]

My vote would be to try a repair. The "new" ones are prone to immediate failure and leakage.

Pull it. Run the tank low on gas and jack the car up from the passenger side to a good angle to keep from spilling gasoline when you remove the sender. Then remove the unit VIA obvious means.

Once out and on the bench look carefully at the wiper arm that moves across the resistance winding. If the arm no longer seems to have much pressure do a little bending to get that right again.

Look carefully at the winding itself. Is is broken at any point? If there is a break near one end or a "semi-break" where the wire is just touching "sometimes" you can unwind a turn from the coil and solder the ends back together. That will change the resistance a fraction but you probably won't be able to notice it at the gauge. If you can't get the solder to stick you can always do a "twist it together" as long as you do it tight and act like a good surgeon.

Also, you did make sure that the voltage stabilizer is good and connected well did you not? It is the little rectangular box thingie with two wires connected to it under the dash on the bulkhead in front of the driver's seat.

Other possibilities would be a bad ground at the sender or an intermittent open between the gauge and the tank.

Jack

 

[boxofparts]

A repair like a good idea.. It really hurts these cars to let them sit. I have installed what my kids call a race seat and every day they want to go for a ride in the yellow MG..

This is Ella.. 2 1/2 yrs.

 

[DrEntropy]

Hooboi. Now you've done it. She's ruined for life. There's never gonna be a car she'll have more memories of or fondness for. :laugh:

 

[twigworker]

DrE is right!

Just think, eighty years from now, when everyone is floating around on magic carpets, she is going to recall the times when Dad took her out on nice evenings and sunny Saturdays for real thrills in a rough riding, wind in the hair old open car.

"Priceless" as they say in the AMEX commercials.

Jack

 

[Guinn]

Like the day I took my 65 year old cousin - a Catholic Nun- up in my Grumman American Yankee and rolled it! WhooHee! She hollered "OH S**T OH DEAR!" a couple of times. But she says she never wants to do it again.

Guinn