# fuel gauge problem and the sender fix



## mbu10 (Dec 26, 2003)

Well i had a problem with my fuel gauge so decided to see what i could do here is a step by step what i did and fixed it 
P.S NO SMOKING WHEN DOING THIS
Â Â Â WEAR GLOVES PETROL IS NOT NICE TO SKIN
Â Â Â HAVE BOTH DOORS OPEN TO VENTALATE CAR
Â Â Â MAKE SURE YOU HAVE LESS THAN 1/4 
Â Â Â OF A TANK OF FUEL
Â Â Â 
Figured away of fixing it(Think it reports wrong, As is crap which has settled on the sender electronic board) Â and a way of testing to see if is Fuel sender or POD 
HERE GOES
(this is the coupe instructions as do know where the sender is in the roadster)
Firstly:
move both front seats all the way forward and tilt them only way you will get in Â ;D
OK put both hands under left side of the back seat and pull up there is a huge plastic tab that clips onto the seat do same for right and push the seat up that's all the access you need
second:
you will see 2 LARGE black metal covers, Mine was the left side looking at, it had some cables going under it which verified that is the side I needed, there are 3 large selftappers which need taking out,
Once you have done that remove the cover it is sealed with a rubber ring which is bonded to the cover so does not fall off.
Once you have taken this off you will see,
2 pipes, 1 set of wires both of which go in to a large round plastic "cover" that has a black edge that sits on the fuel tank.
(now thought about this bit)
The electrical connector that connects to this round plastic cover, one of the sides has what looks like a tab mechanism on it, press tab and will pull/lift Â off though is a little stiff needed a screwdriver to prise mine off, Once off Â I switched on the car so I could see dials move and it reported my tank as empty, fair enough(here I presume if not a sender fault the fuel gauge would not register empty)
By the way the ignition needs to be switched on and off again to get a reading each time otherwise it remembers when you unplug it!!!! 8)
Next there are the 2 pipes going in to the plastic "LID" they are at the end Â bent 90 deg before going from a pipe to a connector where they go into the plastic lid.
Directly opposite of where the pipe leads upto the connector right of the bottom of the connector is a small "TAB" press tab again, Â press and off it comes very easy (does not spill any fuel this) move them to one side (you cannot mix up which one is which as they are differing lengths and the shortest does not reach the furthest connector
Now you have disconnected both pipes and the connector
Round the top of the white plastic cover is a HUGE black ring. Now looking at it, It has some notches on the out side, ok
Now where the selftappers were located to the side of each one of where they were are 2 cut outs in the metal, using a long screwdriver I put in the slot (next to the self tappers) and moved the notched black ring anti-clockwise to loosen then unfastened by hand and removed,
Right after removing the black ring you have a white round plastic bit which is sat in the tank.
Just lift gently and will move up you can pull about 7 inches with the amount of free cable in there, when you do is it lift directly up until is lifted out of a "guide" that is located in the fuel pump in the fuel tank, keep lifting till you can move to the right(there is a long spring there but is not tensioned and does not pop out or drop out Â )


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## mbu10 (Dec 26, 2003)

What you should have now is the white plastic round cover now 6-7 inches above/to the left of the fuel tank and you should be able to see inside the fuel tank.
In there will be some pipes,wires and other bits and bobs,
What you interested in though, is this
Looking down into the fuel tank is the "pump" with 4 wires going into it
As your looking at the "pump" tilt the top of it towards you and look 3/4 of the way down you will see a ARM with a small electronic plate sat beneath it (that's the actual variable resistor ) With 2 small spade connectors which I left alone but if you wanted to you could have cleaned the connections.
I reconnected the electrical connector to the white plate from where I disconnected it, and switched on the ignition(no fuel was spilt in any of this and the fuel pump did not engage at any time)
Then lightly grasp the arm and move up and down which it will do very freely, while doing so see if your petrol gauge moves mine did but only a little(gauge lags a little so move and wait 2 sec and should move),
Got a small tooth brush (nice SOFT one) and rubbed over where you can see then arm moves across moved arm up and did beneath it (just gently 2-3 times)
Yet again switched on ignition and moved arm and all of a sudden the gauge started moving tried the range top- bottom and working fine
Disconnected the connector and powered off ignition
Made sure fuel pump facing right way and slid the top of the cover back down, making sure was in this "guide" which has a spring in it (will not go down if not in the guide)
press down lightly to put the white round plastic cover into place until it seats properly
At this point there was a couple of DROPS of petrol from where I had my hand in the fuel to move the ARM I mopped them up with a dry cotton cloth.
When you have done that get the black round ring and screw back on by hand till tight, then screwdriver in one of the cut out next to where the self tappers go and tighten clockwise (I did about 1/3- 1/2 a turn (about the same I needed to loosen))
Press the 2 pipes on which will "click" into place, Press the electrical connector back on and switch on the ignition to make sure is working correctly,
Put the black metal cover back on (can only go on one way) and fasten the 3 self tappers back in and replace the seat by pressing down onto it which clicks back into place

Hope that help you


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## scoTTy (May 6, 2002)

Great write up that may actually help me. 

Can you explain the symptoms you had which led you to do this?

Cheers.


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## Chip_iTT (Nov 14, 2003)

Excellent description mbu...

Almost identical to the procedure in the manual  without the cleaning bit...there they say swap it out!

Did you measure the resistance of the sender first? clearly the track was contaminated and a resistance measurement might have confirmed that.

Big question...what is the contamination??? and do you need to clean fuel filter too?


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## Chip_iTT (Nov 14, 2003)

Another thought.... did you clean both senders? There are two on opposite sides of the 4WD tank, FWD cars only have the one. The primary sender is co-located with the primary fuel pump.


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## mbu10 (Dec 26, 2003)

Was about 1 week ago, 1/4-1/3 of a tank of fuel and next day got in car switched on expecting to need to get fuel and guess what 3/4 of a tank,
filled up and rose to full but when driving at 100 mikles had nto moved next hundred down a little Â and at 250 was down to a 3/4

The electornic board has lines like this which are connectors basically

Â Â IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII

which a arm with a "carbon" brush attached which touches the electronic board giving certain resistance at a certain point.(As it goes up and down)
Now if at another part the connector is shorted by crap from fuel, But since you still have another "connector", which is the arm moving up and down)

The resistance varibilty(following OHM law) would mean that the resistance would still be within set limits (that why is showing up on the fuel gauge still) but has limited movement 
IE if Â the normal is like 1-100(example figure)
When connected in 2 places the most that could be is like 75-100 or similar (example figure)

hope that clears something else up


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## mbu10 (Dec 26, 2003)

Nope i only cleaned the one as mine started working,

As the tank goes down this board is not immersed in fuel any more and if when you stop and the fuel level is half on half off the PCB board then Â it deposits some residue onto it which may contaminate, and eventually short one or more connectors

But thats my guess and cleaning mine worked well
did not replace the fuel filter at all
BY the way if you do this and works please tell me would be nice to know if it works for others as well as it did for me

P.S and thank for complimeting the write up as i am a terrible writer


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## aidb (Mar 19, 2003)

No, thank *you* for going to the trouble of writing this step by step guide. [smiley=thumbsup.gif]

This is what makes this forum so great. Â


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## Dont I Recognise You (Oct 10, 2003)

Most definately!


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## jonno (May 7, 2002)

Well done!
(+brave  )
I was wrong on the dash call then....


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## mbu10 (Dec 26, 2003)

Well was quite easy really, kept a cotten rag to hand just in case of any fuel spillage but there was really none, apart from a little when i pushed the top unit back into the tank,
Found suprisingly easy


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## mbu10 (Dec 26, 2003)

on reading this post
http://www.********.co.uk/ttforumbbs/Ya ... 1076625326

just incase the toothbrush does not work you could put a little propropanal on the brush which woud of course move remove any deposits but would not harm the pcb board
which is some cases might help more than just a tooth brush without anything on it


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## sico (Feb 6, 2003)

Why not pass some piccys and instructions to Wak so he can upload to his website! ;D


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## Rhod_TT (May 7, 2002)

Warning: Thread resurrection

Tried cleaning my fuel senders today but didn't get that far. Managed to remove all of the hoses, connectors from the top and get the thing loose but I couldnt get the whole unit out of the tank to clean it properly (there's some hoses and wires stopping it sliding out). Should I just keep pulling on it of is there a knack? Do I need to get it out of the tank to clean it?

And the fuel guage only settled to 1/4 of a tank when I unplugged the electrical connector to the fuel sender (with the ignition on - with the ignition off the guage goes all the way down below the red segment). Does this sound like a fuel sender or dashpod problem? (I'm hoping dashpod)


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## TTommy (Apr 28, 2004)

i have my car in Audi to diagnose problem with my fuel gauge.

First thing that happened was fuel gauge didnt go all the way to full when filled up with full tank (anywhere between above 1/2 to just below full).

Now the dial sits above th eempty when you turn keys off and with a full tank of petrol it shoots off the end of the full dial. I did 200 miles and it still showed 3/4 tank on the gauge and 180miles left on DIS


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## Rhod_TT (May 7, 2002)

Nope. Still can't get the fuel sender/pump assemble out of the tank. The float lever thingy seemed to move pretty freely though and didn't have any visible crud on it. Maybe it's a dealer trip I require (since the DIS is ok but the guage isn't - my dealer wanted to charge me Â£55 just to diagnose it and I don't have any confidence that they'll diagnose the right thing).


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## swinello (Jan 1, 2007)

you could try looking at the right hand side sender unit,i did the cleaning the left had side unit a while back to no avail, but while unscrewing the RHS unit the guage moved so i partly removed it and gave it a shake(techinical eh) reinstaled it as it was registering about right,looked like slightly different arrangement to the otherside one by the way,im going to reinvestigate why this worked at sometime in the near future but thought id share it with everyone that is having a spot of bother as its very annoying when it plays up


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## jontidyuk (Feb 20, 2007)

got in my car this morning and the fuel dial starting flicking about the half full line going just under and then just over and the DIS was 135 miles left, then 130, then 125 then back up to 135 and so on. so i set off and by the time i got to the end of the road it settled down. 
Do you think its the dashpod or should i do the fuel sender thingy as above?


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## paddymph (Oct 4, 2009)

ah guttted, so ur DIS mathed the needle but it was still the dashpod?! fek.

i may be in the same boat as I need a new thermostat too, im hoping its coincidence!


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## polo10v (Mar 28, 2010)

hi i tried to clean the fuel sender on my ttr 2day following the instructions given in this topic. my dis was stating 0 miles, so when i got to the fuel pump i could see there was at least 1.5-2 gallons of fuel in the tank, therefore my dis is reading wrong and the fuel guage reads the same as dis everytime. 
Anyhow following the instruction and in particular the part were it says to reconnect the electric connecter only and turn ignition on and move float arm up and down moniter any fuel guage changes, i wa shocked to see fuel shoot out of the pump and into my car from were the the black pipe connects on top of the fuel pump! Therefore i could not carry out the 'moving sender arm test', surely you must have to recoonect this pipe otherwise fuel will just spurt out into car?
Once i cleaned the fuel up, i used toothbrush to scrub the sender board as instructed, and then re- assembled the pump back together.
The dis and guage has now gone from 0 miles to 265 miles and a full tank on guage, which is incorrect there is roughly 2 gallon of fuel in car! i repeated the process twice with same dissapointing outcome.
Do i need to 'clean' the other sender or do i just replace the sender with a new one?
any advice would be great?


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## Sickboy (Oct 13, 2004)

your dashpod could possibly be at fault. I did all this and eventually replaced the senders (£100) too but to no avail. my DIS and gauge always read the same. :?


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## megliam (Feb 15, 2011)

hi folks, sorry to resurect this post, wondering if sickboy was still around and if so can you tell me where you bought your fuel senders for £100.

In fact can anyone tell me a good supplier of replacement senders and TT parts in general.
Thanks


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## ViperOneZero (Sep 4, 2008)

Well.. i have the fuel gauge misreading fault. Vag-com instrument panel tests are fine, needle rises to half way and drops to zero as it should... The petrol level is exaggerated but the dis range reading matches the pod needle level. Vag com fuel level tests match the dis and needle display... I changed the o/s fuel sender this evening to no avail.,. same over reading symptoms..... looks like im going to have to change the n/s fuel sender now!

My pod is stamped up 2008, so wouldnt expect it to be at fault....but you never know.... :evil:


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## Rosso TT (Dec 25, 2010)

Ok, my fuel gauge had played up and down for a couple of months, i knew were the senders because i connected VCDS.
Yesterday i took both senders out of the tank and gave them a good scrub but i noticed the one attached to the fuel pump is fairly worn.
Put everything back together and still haven't solved the problem.
Can i just buy the sender/floater alone or do i need to buy the fuel pump/sender combo?
Also my car had suffered for 6 months from hard start though was the engine speed sensor that was faulty.
I've got an adj FPR and in line gauge and notice when i turned the ign to acc after reinstalled the senders that there wasn't any pressure in the fuel system, though was normal and turned ign off, left for half hour and turned on again i could ear the pump priming for less than 2 second and still no pressure, tried to start and it didn't, tried again and the engine turned over this time.
Is it normal that the pump primes for 2 second only or is there e problem with the pump itself?
Is there an in tank fuel pump upgrade for TTQ because i'm thinking of getting a GT28RS in the future.
Thanks


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## Sickboy (Oct 13, 2004)

Rosso TT said:


> Ok, my fuel gauge had played up and down for a couple of months, i knew were the senders because i connected VCDS.
> Yesterday i took both senders out of the tank and gave them a good scrub but i noticed the one attached to the fuel pump is fairly worn.
> Put everything back together and still haven't solved the problem.
> Can i just buy the sender/floater alone or do i need to buy the fuel pump/sender combo?
> ...


did you take the pump out of the tank to remove the sender for cleaning? if so all the fuel will have drained from it so that's probably why it took a couple of goes to start!



megliam said:


> hi folks, sorry to resurect this post, wondering if sickboy was still around and if so can you tell me where you bought your fuel senders for £100.
> 
> In fact can anyone tell me a good supplier of replacement senders and TT parts in general.
> Thanks


Yeah I pop in front time to time!  I buy my parts from TPS (trade parts specialists_ mine is local in liverpool)
http://www.thetradepartsspecialists.co. ... stNews.php


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## Rosso TT (Dec 25, 2010)

This has appened for 6 months now, engine doesn't start up at first attempt when cold.
I never took notice of the pressure in the system before.


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## Kalpz (Jul 18, 2006)

Hi

I've tried this today as well.

When i got to the pump and looked at the sender, it seemed clean to me and I could not see anything on it.

I cleaned the sender with a toothbrush and then put it back together.

My needle still only just moved up a notch above emply when turning on the ignition, I am going to fill up now and see if it makes a difference.

My DIS and needle read the same but when before I did this my needle was on emply and had 5 miles to go, there was still a lot of fuel in the tank, atleast 2 gallons, anyone know what the reserve is?


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## Tritium (Apr 25, 2011)

Kalpz said:


> anyone know what the reserve is?


Capacity:
FWD 14.5gallons - 55L (single sender)
AWD 16.3gallons - 62L (dual senders)

Reserve, Assuming I recall correctly about 6 litres.

I guess if you cleaned the sender(s) contacts well then there's not much more you can do bar replacement.

If you can access vag-com you can test the dash needle positions with an output test. That makes all the gauges sweep through defined points. If the gauge shows wrong then gauge or dash-pod driver is faulty.

*If* its the gauge that's sweeping poorly you can replace the needle motor like I did by getting this:

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=261105238111#ht_500wt_1206

or you could send the pod away to be repaired.

Brian


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## Kalpz (Jul 18, 2006)

Tritium said:


> Kalpz said:
> 
> 
> > anyone know what the reserve is?
> ...


Hi i've ordered the cable but where can i get the software from to test the needle?

Cheers,

Kal


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## dizzle (Mar 22, 2009)

I am having an issue with mine too, basically I get half a tank on the needle n dis at 140-150, when I disconnected the pump the needle dropped to empty and the dis to 0, now I tried to clean the sender on the pump which am presuming it's the white flat surface beneath the rotational arm? Can anyone confirm this so I'm sure I done all I can? And would it be recommended to check the right sender too? I had a really long ass day sorting out other lil issues with the car today(seat belt wouldn't retract, abs sensor n few other things) n feel really frustrated that this petrol thing is happening to me


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## Bago47 (Nov 27, 2011)

A quick bump so I can find this thread later


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## drone (Sep 24, 2014)

A quick bump ditto!!!!


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