marshm4ll0w

alright iv got a problem with my 90 4runner fuel gauge. ever since i bought it the gauge never worked. id fill it up and the gauge would read full for about 50km. even at full the low fuel light was always on. after 50km it would go down to empty then the low fuel warning light would go off. so its kinda backwards.

so the first thing i thought was the sending unit must be messed up. so being in collage for auto i decided to take a whirl at understanding how it all worked. so i got to the fuel sender. i didnt feel like dropping the tank so i kinda did my own short cut. i pulled out the rear seats and pulled back the carpet, and pulled one of the plugs. i looked under to find the fuel sender. i could see the wires underthere so i marked it out. so i got out that handy dandy cut off tool and cut me a hole in the floor boards with only 3 sides cut and pulled the floor up like a hinge. i cut the wrong hole, cause i found the fuel pump. well it wokred good cause while i was there i checked it. so finally cut me the second hole.

so i got the sender out and tested it on a digital multimeter to check the reistance in ohms. it read a little lower than expected according to the vehicle. so i cleaned up the contact a little with scotchbrite and it was like brand new. still didnt work. so i tried different sender form wrecker it was the same. i traced all wireing too the dash and nothing still. i looked at the gauge closer and the one from a wrekcer was in worse shape cause it had a burn mark on the sender. mine was perfectly fine.

so now that i know im good from the sender side of it all, i figured it must be the gauge thats all bunged up. so my question is can i buy just the fuel gauge part or do i have to buy the hole cluster? i called toyota and they quoted me 400 for the hole thing. they didnt say anyting about the fuel gauge part. so i was wondering weather anyone else has had a similar problem and what did they do? iv wired in a universal gauge but id prefer to get the other one to work if possible.