electrical?

[ard]

Hello everyone, I am still having two small problems that so far I could not resolve; On 1982 GS 1100 E, the fuel gauge needle is all over the place as soon as I ride, I took evry connection (Bullet) apart clean, and replug, did not do the work, I dont know what else should I do. I have a fuel level indicator (The unit that is in the tank) from 1980 GS1000G, it is almost identical except the rod lenght seems to be diffrent, I wonder if it works (at least to try).
the other problem is the Neutral light, I took the bulbs out in the panel the bulb is okay, I could not read anything with my power testlight, any suggestions on these two would be very apreciated.

ard

[Anonymous]

problems

the problem could be in the tank sending unit or gauge receiving unit yuou could always try connecting the sending unit to the wires without installing it in the tank and make sure any grounds ect are connected and move it by hand to see if it works.....if it doesnt and ur sure u had it connected outside of the tank right and check the gauge if it does then swap the rod out or adjust the exsisting one to the same lenth and cut off the exses rod..................

now for the nutrel light if the bulb and everything is ok and ur sure all grounds and wires are solidly connected you can check the spring loaded needle thats under the cover by the front sprocket and the current flow thru it and ect........hope that helped

[ard]

gauge

Hi BBoxer, thank you for your help, can you tell me again the procedure about testing the tank unit, if I touch it by hand what happens and how would I know if it is working, I mean what should I look for?

ard

[Anonymous]

if you move the arm of the unit up and down it should make the gauge move; up for full down for empty

[Anonymous]

Advice is correct....HOWEVER


when you move the slide up and down do it slowley and smoothly so you give the gage a chance to react.

Look for the slide contact to touch the wire windings with some force or springback. If the slide touches the winding too lightly, you can get intermittent contact which causes the defective symptom you are experiencing. (Wearout causes contact problems over time) - Dieter

[ard]

Hi Tony, thank you for your input, where is the slide, and where isthe wire winding? is the rod that holds the bowl is the slide?
ard

[ard]

well this is what I did, I had another tank unit which came from 80 GS1000G, it was a bit diffrent, before I instaled it in the tank like you guys suggested I checked by connecting to power, the needle responded very nice and crisp, but when I installed it the needle viberates as bad. can I replace just the fuel gauge? is it available?

ard :? :?

[Anonymous]

OK Krause, Dink, Earl - check me on this. I speak from experience on automobiles but most vehicles are the same.

The slide is on the gas tank underneath. You have to remove the assembly from the gas tank which is an attached plate I believe held on by some nuts or bolts or ?? and a gasket underneath.

When you remove this from the tank (the petcock assy and associated hardware) you should see what is called the "sending unit" inside. You can identify the sending unit because the electrical wires from the gas tank end up going to it. Trace them back to the tank and so on. There is probably some kind of arrangement with a float (yeah like the carbs have a float too!) and this float is attached to a lever of some sort or attached to a slider. The float goes up and down with the fuel height or amount of gas in the tank, and this moves the contact up and down over a wire winding....the wire winding which will be basically a very thin wire about the thickness of the letter i here which is wound around a form. The arrangement is basically so the slider contact can slide up and down across it, thereby changing the overall electrical resistance of the electrical connection to the gas tank sending unit. Get it? It's very simple. When the resistance changes, the amount of electrical current your fuel gage sees changes, and this moves the gage needle. Some needles move by heat generated by the current to the gage, some fancy D'arsonval movement types by voltage.

Well as far as the slider is concerned, have you ever seen a wire wound potentiometer or ever used a variac to adjust AC power? It's the same principle for the slider and slider contact.

Look for the slidy thingy and the wire going to it and the electrical contact of the slidy thingy to the coil wiry thingy. The coil wiry thingy should not have any wear on it that breaks the coil wire AND the slidy thingy contact should always stay in firm physical contact with the coil wire. (This is not a coil wire like for ignition mind you). Whew!

Maybe the contact is intermittent and when you put it in the tank, the fact that it is in a different position affects the reliability of the connection between the slider contact and the coiled wire winding.

If you are mechanically inclined - take the sending unit off of the tank - and you will see what I mean. It is simpler than I have made it sound. - Dieter.

[argonsagas]

My bet would be you have a problem with the length of the arm on the unit from the G tank.

All G models have larger tanks than the E models, and they are slightly different in shape as well.

You mentioned the difference in arm length, so it would be reasonable to expect the longer G arm in an E tank would push against the side of the E tank. The resultant friction would lead to an intermittent motion and a fluctuating gauge reading as the float position would change more frequently due to vibration than fuel level.

[ard]

Hi Ron, I am aware of the diffrence between the two units, what I wanted to find out if the needle reacts diffrent, regardless of the faulty reading, I wanted to see if the viberation of the needle will go away, which did not. As for the wire winding resistor, I looked at the unit that goes in the tank, at the end of the slider it is a box seems like held together by prongs that bend onto each other, I will take that apart and see how is it working, if I dont ruin the unit and I see something that can be fixed I will take the one that actualy goes to the 82 GS1100E and try to fix it. Thank you for the info I will keep you posted with the results.

ard