My fuel gauge reads full when the tank is full, but as soon as I get down to about 3/4 tank of gas the gauge drops all the way below empty. I know I am probably looking at replacing the sender in the tank, but I thought I should make sure there are no grounds near the fuel tank that could be checked. Any other ideas I could look into?

 

There are grounds on the fuel tank sender.
You can also ohm out your gauge to see if it's in spec...

I imagine you can ohm out the sender too, before you remove it... It's relatively easy to get at on the 4runner, dunno about the pickup.

 

If you have a p/u just take the bed off.

 

So can I get to the sender without removing the tank? I thought I had read that the tank had to be dropped.

 

The sender is in the back part of the tank. May be able to lower the back of the tank far enough to get to it, otherwise, drop the whole tank down.

I had the same problem with mine when I bought it (PO had installed a new battery backwards - reverse polarity). Put in a new sender and all works fine.

 

Random....mine has the exact same problem

 

X2 on that so not a hijack but a group thinking so how do WE check the sender it self? as i have installed two clusters and it still does this so do WE have to drop the tank and replace or just check a wire or three?

 

You'd think if we bump this a few times, we'll find someone who fixed this problem. Its a little cold out to drop the fuel tank, but I might crawl under there and check the wiring this weekend.

 

What model, what year?

I know the 1999 4Runners had fuel gauge problems, it was a warranty fix for it when they were still in warranty.

Now that their out of warranty it's a $420.00 bill to repair it, new sending unit, new fuel tank piping, new printed circuit behind the instrument cluster.

To coin an old Toyota ad: "Oh whatta feeling"

I've asked Toyota U.S.A. about this and they more or less laughed in my face.

Perhaps a call to the National Highway Safety Administration would help, if enough owners of the effected vehicles did this perhaps a Recall would be in order.


Something like, "I was stranded out in a Raging Blizzard, simply because the fuel gauge read inacuratley" almost died because of it. Might be a proper phrase to tell them?

 

Sorry - This is on my 88 4runner. 22R-E.

 

http://www.4crawler.com/4x4/4R_TechI...tml#Electrical

3 ohms = full, 110 ohms = empty