Folks,
So the 160k 21 year old Honda is showing some age.....
About 6 months ago, the gas gage started getting flakey: Sometimes it registered, other times it went to "f" and stayed there. (Not a big problem considering that I drive the car about 120 miles per week and it gets 35 mpg +.) Resetting the trip OD at every fillup and gassing up when the OD hits 300 miles: Never ran out of gas.
Now it stays on "f" and doesn't move.
The Honda manual basically says to "Remove the rear interior to access the Fuel tank cover/sender...."
That's a PIA.
Has anyone else had this problem on this vintage Honda?
My guess is that I have a poor connection to the Sender or a bad sender. Bad gage is possible but a lower probability. (I think)
I can drive this thing forever on the trip OD/fuel gage, but I have some time, and would like to fix this...
Whaddya think?
TIA,
Rog Smith
In reply to emodspitfire:
Sedan or hatch? I know at least on the hatches that removing the rear seat is pretty darn easy and provides access to the sender.
I think removing the rear seat is pretty darn easy on all of them. Quit being a wuss and take your back seat out already.
But yeah, probably is a bad sending unit. Here's how to test it.
Wuss !?
No way!!
Lazy....yes!
So I just checked Majestic Honda and a Sender + Gasket is under $50. God I love Hondas....
Rog
I've noticed my 91 CRX fuel gauge reads about 15-25% lower than reality for the whole tank. I was wondering what to do about it today, and look what pops up on the forum! I love GRM.
yeah, my 89 Civic Si does the same thing, except sits on empty instead of Full. It will read if have the car on, or power on, but once I start driving it drops to empty, not a big deal, just keep track of how much gas is in it.
Steven
Folks,
Thanks for all the previous inputs/comments.
It has been a VERY busy summer and I just managed to dig into this problem:
Results:
Fuse is OK
Voltage at sender is 7.6 V versus Honda specced battery voltage.
Ground is OK at sender.
Hot wire to Sender appears to be OK. (Not sure digging into the IP is worth the trouble to double check)
Sender is OK
gage appears OK doing the "Shorted terminals" test.
Best guess by me is that the gage is going south and has high resistance (Dropping the voltage), but has not completely failed....
I suspect that I need to drive this using the trip OD for a gas gage and forget about it...
Thanks,
Rog
Old mercedes have a problem with fuel gauges not reading correctly. I took my fuel sender apart and cleaned it but the gauge is still erratic. I haven't yet but the solution is to clean the ground at the cluster and even to install another ground to the cluster. Your problem is a honda, but same sort of problem. Good luck!
If it needs a cluster you could probably get a non-Si one for free or get the Si one (has a tach) for $30 or so. They also take about 20 minutes to change.
