1990 Festiva Fuel Gauge bad Sending Unit

[bravekozak]

Great news. I finally opened up my fuel level sender and two wires were broken in the middle. How convenient. The wire thickness is .008" There are approximately 90 wraps which is equivalent to 10.5 feet of wire. Each wrap is about 1.4".

So 32 ga. wire is about right. Except that the resistance of the Nichrome 60 is slightly higher than stock. Fewer wraps would be required. You only need about 9 feet of wire.

[the_feist_in_festiva]

This is folly. Impossible! I spent an hour yesterday trying to redo the wires but I cannot prevent the wires from touching each other. If they touch, the resistance is lowered and the entire thing is off. I'm sure with some tricks and some more effort I could do it, but it takes painstaking effort, which I do not have.

Still, this is a wonderful cheap way to get a relatively good working gauge, and if I just remember that halfway means empty, I'll be fine, lol. Because instead of 95 ohms I've got 50 ohms, because of the wires touching.

But I do want to buy a sending unit. Whoever has one, please contact me as soon as possible with a price! I live in Northern California!

[bravekozak]

Maybe a comb is needed. For the price of the wire, I am also going to give it a shot. It will make an interesting winter project, since I don't watch junk television.

Just pull a fuel pump at the junk yard and remove the sender/float. It's just held on with two small nuts. I am certain, it's a lot less money than paying for the entire pump.

[db2u]

This is folly. Impossible! I spent an hour yesterday trying to redo the wires but I cannot prevent the wires from touching each other. If they touch, the resistance is lowered and the entire thing is off. [/U][/B]

Is there any way to coat the wire with some sort of spray on flexible insulator (some sort of plastic paint?) and then after winding it, just take some very fine sandpaper to the outside, so that just the top of the winding would be conductive?

[bravekozak]

That is sort of what the guy did in his you tube video with a knife to the epoxy, as it was thermosetting.

[the_feist_in_festiva]

I'd like to buy a working fuel sender for a 90 fuel injected Festiva if anyone has one. Otherwise I'm driving 100 miles to a junkyard that MIGHT have a working one. I'm an idiot. I hope someone has luck with the epoxy and the wires. Maybe give me some encouragement.

[the_feist_in_festiva]

Now wait just a minute. Can you take the little box with the windings around it from an 89 and older Festiva and put it in a 90 and up Festiva? THIS WOULD BE GLORIOUS because there are many 89 and older Festivas around and the closest 90 I can find is at least an hour away. Please give me good news!

[bravekozak]

Wven though they both have the same resistance windings, The carb sender is spotwelded on and not held in place by stud nuts, like on the EFI one. I have never opened up a carb sender to see what's inside. Does anyone know? If you break and resolder the wire at both ends, you might get lucky.

[william]

Iam currently. Using an aspire sinding unit in my 90 festiva all the way full reads 3/4 but is accurate
when its gets down to half and continues to be un till empty.
I thought they were the same as the festiva when i put it in there 2 years ago and thought that the arm the holds the flote must have been bent. But after reading this thread I'm thinking its probably a different ohme reading.

[the_feist_in_festiva]

YES! THIS IS WONDERFUL WONDERFUL NEWS. I'm going to take a second stab at it tomorrow using some JB Weld, because I don't have anything else, and if that fails, I'm going to go pick up an Aspire sending unit. This is beautiful. Thank you William.

You know what, here's what I'll do, since the junkyard is literally down the street from me, lol. I'll take home a carb sending unit and mess with it and see what comes up. If it doesn't work, then I'll go ahead and exchange it for an Aspire unit. I love you all.

[bravekozak]

You only need the coil inside. Remove the sender, open it up, check if the wires are intact. If so, take just that and leave the rest behind. I hope the winding bar is the same length as the EFI, 1.5 inches.

[the_feist_in_festiva]

You only need the coil inside. Remove the sender, open it up, check if the wires are intact. If so, take just that and leave the rest behind. I hope the winding bar is the same length as the EFI, 1.5 inches.

Oh I was so excited. I got a coil from an 88 Festiva and the wires weren't broken, but they were worn, from gold to silver, I'm sure you guys know what I'm talking about. I tested it moving it by hand and it seemed to work fine. Did some soldering. But now the fuel gauge reads completely full, when I've only got about $15 worth of gas in it. What might be causing this?

[bravekozak]

You need to measure how many ohms you are getting. All instrument clusters interchange. Resistances are the same. Where is the arm in relation to the coil? Is the tank half full?

[the_feist_in_festiva]

Maybe it's because the metal bit is grounding itself, touching the plate cover. I left quite a bit of metal on where I soldered the wire onto the new coil. Could that metal touching the top plate cause the gauge to read full all the time? The tank has $15 in it total, tops. I'll take another look at it tomorrow.

[bravekozak]

The solder should only be enough to join the resistance wire to the red power wire. That is why there is a round plastic isolator under the solder and why the bridge for winding the wire on is also plastic. So that it isn't grounded and can give a reading. The float arm pivot is supposed to provide the ground. If you had an ohmeter, you could have tested the resistance before you installed it.