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I ordered a new fuel guage sending unit for my '86 J20 from BJ's as soon as they became available. It's a good thing since my ability to guess how much fuel is in the tank has not been too great! I'll explain later! The new unit arrived via UPS about 10 days ago and I planned to get it installed on saturday-wrong, I got started about 3:00 in the afternoon, gave up for the night about 7:00 pm to watch a movie with my wife and daughter and got started again after lunch on Sunday. I worked all afternoon, stopped for supper and stayed after it until about 11:00 pm and gave up for the night. On Monday I got home from the office, had supper and got back to it about 7:00 pm and stayed after it until I finished about 11:00 pm, backed the truck out of the garage under its own power and called it good!
The new sending unit didn't look like the old one, new one on the left, old one on the right:
The tank is one of the front loading tanks unique to '86-'88 Jtrucks. It looked like I might be able to change it without dropping the tank but after looking at it I realized the tank had to come down. It took several of those hours on my back removing the rusty, undercoated nuts and bolts but overall I had very good luck getting everything loose, it just took alot longer than expected. Removing the tank took about 10 of the total of 16 hours I spent working on it.
I drained all of the fuel I could get out of the tank before I started. I expected to drain about 3 gallons based on the amount I had put in a few days earlier but the truck must have been using more fuel than expected. SHOCKING!! I estimate about 8 mpg! Tuning and fuel mileage will be the next issue I tackle. Here's the tank on the floor after I got it out:
Here's where it came from, it looks pretty clean actually. I didn't expect to find all that bare primer under there.
I also consider myself very lucky that both of the filler hoses were in good shape and I was able to get them loose without damage and re-use them.
Now I just need a new gas cap! (the rubber seal on mine is going bad)
The new sending unit didn't look like the old one, new one on the left, old one on the right:
The tank is one of the front loading tanks unique to '86-'88 Jtrucks. It looked like I might be able to change it without dropping the tank but after looking at it I realized the tank had to come down. It took several of those hours on my back removing the rusty, undercoated nuts and bolts but overall I had very good luck getting everything loose, it just took alot longer than expected. Removing the tank took about 10 of the total of 16 hours I spent working on it.
I drained all of the fuel I could get out of the tank before I started. I expected to drain about 3 gallons based on the amount I had put in a few days earlier but the truck must have been using more fuel than expected. SHOCKING!! I estimate about 8 mpg! Tuning and fuel mileage will be the next issue I tackle. Here's the tank on the floor after I got it out:
Here's where it came from, it looks pretty clean actually. I didn't expect to find all that bare primer under there.
I also consider myself very lucky that both of the filler hoses were in good shape and I was able to get them loose without damage and re-use them.
Now I just need a new gas cap! (the rubber seal on mine is going bad)
/T18/D20/D44s
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