Fuel Gauge A Bit Low

[Aussiegazza]

My fuel gauge on my R1150RT does not show full. Only gets to 7/8th of a tank.

 

Can this be fixed or do I need to replace a sender?

 

Also what is the difference between the following parts:

 

62 16 2 306 541

 

SENDING UNIT

 

and

 

16 14 2 306 624

 

PETROL GAUGE

 

ie which one is the actual gauge sender?

 

The second one (petrol gauge) above has a float, but it does not appear to me that it can actually float on the top of the fuel in the tank, whereas the sending unit can.

 

Can anyone explain?

 

Garry

[dirtrider]

Morning Garry

 

Difficult to say what you have, could be anything from a poor/oxidized connection, to a grounding issue, to a partially crushed fuel sender tube, to ??????.

 

I have seen some where the fuel pump ground feeds back through the fuel sender ground & skews the reading. If that is the problem you can run a separate ground either in a separate pass through terminal or to both sides of the fuel pump pass through plate.

Does your gauge reading change with JUST the key on (engine not running)? If so suspect a grounding issue.

 

 

On the gauge units?--

 

The 16 14 2 306 624 is the float assembly for the low fuel light.

 

 

The 62 16 2 306 541 is the tube/W float for the actual fuel level reading.

 

Your bike has 2 separate senders in the fuel tank, one for the dash gauge (RID) & one for the low fuel light.

 

[John in NC]

Under the right side fairing there is an electrical connector plug.

Pull that apart and clean it with contact cleaner and anything small you can get in there without doing any damage. Coat both sides with dielectric silicon and put back together. Your gauge will then register correctly.

[Selden]

Adding to John's comment, a proxibrush combined with contact cleaner works very well for cleaning out the female connectors. For the male connectors, a bamboo skewer, although you may have to sand it down a little to get the right diameter. Many people swear by Deoxit for cleaning/protecting electrical contacts.

 

 

 

[Aussiegazza]

I took your combined advice and bought some DeoxIt that also provided earbuds and brushes etc:

 

 

Then put some conductive grease in the holes and all good.

 

Fixing the connection added an entire bar to the fuel gauge.

 

Thanks all

 

Garry

[elkroeger]

sounds like you found a fix. But as long as your odometer works, the fuel gauge is unnecessary.

[tallman]

and common sense.

 

Why push it?

Unless you like pushing the bike.

 

 

[4wheeldog]

The funny thing is, the gas is only missing from the top of the gauge. It doesn't seem to effect the readings near MT. But it bothers me, too, and I have to redo the fix every few years.

[SKYGZR]

My fuel gauge on my R1150RT does not show full. Only gets to 7/8th of a tank.

 

If you want "all bars", then you will have to coax/slowly the final fill when fueling. The in tank neck sticks down into the tank to prevent "overfill".

 

Being easy on the fill handle helps to actually fill the tank to get it really full, yet some nozzles are less than easy to modulate a slow flow.

[Effjay]

If you want "all bars", then you will have to coax/slowly the final fill when fueling. The in tank neck sticks down into the tank to prevent "overfill".

I did that last weekend on my newly acquired RT and got 6.25 gals in shortly after the low fuel warning stayed a-glow. I'm unsure if I was actually already well into reserve by then, 'cus my former 1150GS gauge was significantly inaccurate. My first time into "reserve" on that moto resulted in me walking it off the freeway.

 

Being easy on the fill handle helps to actually fill the tank to get it really full, yet some nozzles are less than easy to modulate a slow flow.

DAMHIK... An attempt yesterday to check mpg by slowly filling to top like last weekend resulted in big splash-back due to inability to modulate the nozzle trigger.

 

 

[skinny_tom (aka boney)]

On two bikes now, I've noticed corrosion on the ground wire on the tank side of the electrical connections. That is, inspect the wires carefully because it may not be the connector.

 

The corrosion was creating increased resistance and in one case a "floating ground" as my electrical engineer father puts it. When the fuel pump was not running, the gauge read correctly, but once there was power to the pump, the gauge showed less than that.

 

The sure-fire fix for a corroded wire is to cut the small ground wire going to the tank right at the connector, remove the corroded section, then using a new bullet or spade connector, run a separate ground specifically for the gauge to the battery.