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just wondering.......be nice to look down and say....."thats exactly how much gas i have!"

themadness wrote:just wondering.......be nice to look down and say....."thats exactly how much gas i have!"

I'm guessing you are referring to GM's extremely "accurate" gas gauges?

I don't know for sure, but I'd guess you have to live with it. Could be wrong though.

i'm about 1/4 of a tank off.......but the visual of the gas needle being on "full" when it actually is would be nice.

Gas guage is driven from a float in the tank, on a steel arm. Only way to change the reading is to bend it. That requires dropping the tank.

I use my odo to tell me how much gas I have.

Chad91GTZ wrote:Gas guage is driven from a float in the tank, on a steel arm. Only way to change the reading is to bend it. That requires dropping the tank.

I use my odo to tell me how much gas I have.

Actually partially true. The moving arm, when moving up and down, creates a resistance that is read electronically. Crud can buildup on the resistor, affecting its ohm reading, giving inaccurate readings.

With a proper ohm spec of the oem sending unit, you can pull yours and measure top and bottom, and cross reference against the oem ohm specs to see if your off.

Here's an idea of how to check and clean it, from the fiero forums. YMMV on the beretta, i've never pulled a sending unit to see how easy it would be.

http://www.fiero.nl/forum/Forum2/HTML/092117.html

or GM has this crap that you put in your tank to clean it, GM Fuel System Treatment PLUS, supposedly works well but its pricey.

GTU89 wrote:
I'm guessing you are referring to GM's extremely "accurate" gas gauges?

haha i use to love the Z26..usually went about 100 miles before it even went past the F

99GaGT3X00 wrote:

GTU89 wrote:
I'm guessing you are referring to GM's extremely "accurate" gas gauges?

haha i use to love the Z26..usually went about 100 miles before it even went past the F

That's because you're technically overfilling the tank. No amount of cleaning the variable resistor is going to compensate for the shape of the gas tank.

Now if you're getting a serious reading discrepancy as the person from the linked thread had, then somethings certainly wrong with the sending unit.


90% of the time I get complaints about gas gauges being off is after tank or fuel pump work and the float arm is bent.

Chad91GTZ wrote:I use my odo to tell me how much gas I have.

X2 ^^^

I have just gotten used to how far off mine is...as soon as it comes off full, i am at half, 1/2 on the gauge is 1/4 in the tank, and 1/4 on the gauge i better be looking for a station!!!

You could just pop the needle off your gauge and put it back on so that it reflects what you actually have in your tank a little more accurately. It won't be perfect, but it beats screwin around with your sending unit.

That's a good idea there. I switched clusters once, well cluster faces anyway, and I had to pull all of the needles and set them to good again. I want to do it again so the fuel gauge better reflects what is in the tank.

ronaconda wrote:

Chad91GTZ wrote:I use my odo to tell me how much gas I have.

X2 ^^^

I have just gotten used to how far off mine is...as soon as it comes off full, i am at half, 1/2 on the gauge is 1/4 in the tank, and 1/4 on the gauge i better be looking for a station!!!

Thats exactly what my fuel gauge does!

On the F its full on the bottom corner of the top square I have half tank left. (I used 6 gallons)
But the difference with mine is:
When it shows 3/4-1/2 (Closer to 3/4) I should be in a gas station ASAP. lol

Is it just broken or do you think it really is dirty? I was planning on buying a brand new Sending unit and pump assembly, 200K miles, I probably should replace it anyways.
This car was air born like really high, bent the unibody under it before I owned it, maybe the sending unit float broke.
I stuck an 87 Gauge cluster on a 90 Beretta, both clusters read the same levels.
The other cluster odometer was not working right.

themadness wrote:just wondering.......be nice to look down and say....."thats exactly how much gas i have!"

Find this post in this thread: http://www.beretta.net/forum/viewtopic. ... 9&start=15


Date: SEPT., 1988
Subject: ELECTRONIC CLUSTER (U52) REPAIR

Model and Year: 1987-88 BERETTA, CORSICA WITH U52 OPTION
TO: ALL CHEVROLET DEALERS

That would be for a digi dash cluster only though.