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Hello my Oldsmobile friends. I have a situation my gas gauge is stuck at 1/4 tank. Thought drop tank clean up contacts. All would be good. Wrong on me. Found silver sealed cylinder with black strainer bag on bottom. Went to auto store no one stocks them. Can you rebuild it or where can u find a new one. Is their one that be used example Cutlass of same year any help is appreciated. The car is a 1968 Delmont 88. Thanks Scott
Acer 1007, those canister style fuel senders are not available anywhere. I had the same issue on my '67 Delta. You can substitute a SPECTRA PREMIUM FG106A cataloged for a 1971-1972 Delta 88 in its place. Available on RockAuto for about $48.00 plus tax and shipping. Drops right in but without the surround, expect your gauge needle to move more while you drive. However, that is far better than an inaccurate or no reading at all.
There are a couple of old threads on the issue here at CO - that is where I learned of the substitute part noted above (added a link to one below) Great folks here with lots of knowledge and willing to share.
While it's likely that the sending unit is the problem, you really should run a couple of quick tests to make sure that the problem isn't elsewhere. You've dropped the tank, correct? Separate the wire coming from the sending unit from the wire coming from the front of the car, which you probably already did, and GROUND the wire coming from the front of the car. Then turn on the ignition. The gauge needle should immediately move to E. Then remove the wire from ground with the ignition still on, and the needle should move immediately to F or well past it. This test takes all of two minutes, and if the gauge moves as described, you have verified that the dash gauge itself and the wiring to it from the rear of the car are in working order.
The next step would be to simply verify that the ground wire coming from the sending unit is firmly attached and that there is no corrosion and dirt at the connection. If this ground is poor, the gauge would likely move to F and stay there, so, since your gauge is apparently getting no power at all since it is stuck at 1/4, I would definitely do the tests I described above and make sure the gauge itself is functioning correctly. You don't want to put in a new sending unit only to discover that the problem was elsewhere.
By the way, if you haven't pulled that cylinder apart, here's what it looks like on the inside. The float is basically a hockey puck with holes in it to allow it to move up and down the shaft. As has been noted, your gas tank is not baffled to prevent fuel sloshing. To prevent the gauge needle from swinging wildly when the fuel is sloshing around as you go around corners and over bumps, baffling of the sending unit is done at the sending unit itself where the canister has small holes in the side to allow fuel to move into and out of the canister, and thus raise or lower the float, slowly. The second photo has arrows pointing at a couple of the holes.
I owned a '67 Delta 88 from 2009 until I sold it in January of this year. It had a sending unit just like yours.
Here's the Spectra Premium replacement. As noted by 67 D88Custom, the part number is FG-106A. In addition to rockauto, it's available at Amazon for $62.78 with free shipping if you have Amazon Prime.
I checked rockauto, and their price is $46.79 as noted. I checked shipping, and for me it would be $8.99 for Fedex ground. So overall about $7 or $8 cheaper to buy from rockauto.
I also checked Autozone, and you can get it through them, too, but only by home delivery. Cost, though, is higher at $89 with free delivery. It pays to shop around.
Last edited by jaunty75; Apr 26, 2020 at 08:11 AM.
Jaunty75 knows of what he speaks and I 100% concur with him. If you have not done so already, do some troubleshooting as he details to verify it is not the gauge or wiring. It was remiss of me to not note this in my original post.
I disassembled my unit and, unfortunately, no amount of cleaning or adjusting would get my float puck to move freely so short of sending it for custom rebuilding I went with the FG106A sender. Figured I could use the $$ I would have spent to professionally rehabilitate my original sender on other more visually noticeable or pressing issues on may car.
