Tank Gauges - Help!

[Ex-Calif]

Originally Posted by Lancerbye

About Tank Tender This is the system I was talking about.

Any equipment that has words "precision," "delicate" or "sensitive" in the descrioption scares me on a boat - LOL

Dan - Is this a new problem or an existing problem?

It's always best to start troubleshooting at the begining. You have 4 tanks, 4 sending units, 2 gages, 2 switches and 2 sets of associated wiring. I assume they have separate power as well.

You also have 2 "systems."

You should troubleshoot each system separately
You should determine if the systems are "factory" or aftermarket replacements
You should determine the sensor type - float, resistance or other
You should also assess the tank shapes as this will be the biggest variable on getting linear readings in the tanks

The first thing I would do is remove and mechanically clean every single connection in the system.

After that I would do the water tanks first by emptying them, I would then add the same known quantities to each tank, take readings and dipstick the tanks - i.e. Make a dipstick and make the first mark at this known quantity.

I would repeat the process, taking guage readings and marking my dipstick in the process.

This will give me a baseline of how they are behaving. Because the sending units and the wiring are the only independent parts of "one" system you can also take resistance readings at each step and see if the senders are behaving differently.

Another cheap troubleshooting method may be to swap the sending units from one tank to the other.

Troubleshooting is a slow, methodical and often tedious process but it will yield the most reliable results.