fried fuel gauge

[Guest]

Hi all,

The fuel gauge on my 1981 GS850G does not work. The PO said that battery installed with the terminals reversed. This popped the main fuse and fried a wire. The battery, fuse, and wire were replaced.

The bike's electrics seem fine but the fuel gauge does not move. I have not done any investigation yet. I was wondering if anyone has had a similar problem and if there is any hope of fixing the gauge. It seems like gauges are hard to come by.

What is the voltage range from the sender (0-12v)?

Thanks

[Adler]

Its usually the sender in the tank that is the problem.
I'd start there. There are guides, check BassCliffs site.

[koolaid_kid]

Here is one of them: Jethro's Fuel Sending Unit Repair
However, the first thing I would do (and did) was check the Factory Service Manual (you do have one, right?) for the proper voltages. There are two wires that go to the sending unit and the gauge. Check those first, buy a 99 cent pack of resistors at Radio Shack and see if the gauge itself works first. It is all in the Manual, at least for my GS, and certainly for yours as well.

[chuck hahn]

First thing I would do is bend a piece of wire into a U and jump across the two plugs in the harness the sending unit plugs in to. If the guage is in fact working it will rise as it normally would. If it does then the next culprit would be the sending unit.

[subforry]

Just to close out this thread. I purchased used interment cluster on eBay. Drained and removed the tank. I was able to use a multimeter to varify that the sender resistance was close enough to the values in the repair manual. I turned the tank upside down so the float would fall to the full position.

I cleaned the contacts, installed the used tachometer, and now I have a working fuel gauge.

When the PO's brother reversed the polarity of the battery it fried lots of wire and the fuel gauge, so don't do that