I switched back to a 914 fuel sender and fitted a 50mm VDO fuel gauge in my dash (in a sort of factory 914/6 style) after the aftermarket sender/gauge stopped working.

The VDO gauge has opposite polarity and was calibrated differently, but apart from those two minor discrepancies when I wired up the gauge and sender the basics worked as expected - the needle read the level in the tank and moved as the gas level went down.

In order to recalibrate the gauge (yes, it would still be backwards) I bought a 0-10K potentiometer and first wired it between the gauge ground and the sender wire, and then tried it between the 12V and the sender wire to figure out which would help me correct the amount of resistance necessary to get the needle where I wanted it to be.

At some point during this - I think it was when I wired it between the 12V and the sender wire - the needle shot up to full.

Long story slightly less long, after going through everything that might be wrong (grounds, sender wire, etc) I took the sender apart and found the silver wire inside has snapped. So my questions are:

1. Is this repairable? It looks it, and I have a soldering iron, but the wire is pretty badly kinked in 4-5 places so I may need to find replacement wire.

2. Did this happen because of something I did, or is it from wear and tear? As I said, it seemed to be working fine until I wired up the potentiometer, but my knowledge of these kind of things is pretty basic.

Click to view attachment

Thanks
John

If you solder it wouldn't it impede the travel of the float. pm Brucestone for another one.

I believe you've fried it.

The Cap'n

It broke right at the point where it was soldered, so it wouldn't, but trying to resolder it might be a nightmare. I'm going to give it a shot today and if not I'll pm Bruce.

Can you elaborate on why? I like to at least learn something from my dumbass mistakes. I'm guessing bridging the 12V and the sender wire with the potentiometer sent current down the sender wire into the sender, right? It sounds so obvious when I say it out loud...

Does anyone have a picture of the internals of a sender they could post, specifically how the wire is routed through the plastic piece on the end? Does it touch the metal post or go around it?

Click to view attachment