The V8 Owners Forum -

Hi guys, I'm fabricating an ally fuel tank, can anyone tell me if an old land rover series type lucas fuel sender unit will work ok with aftermarket gauges- i.e. a dedicated Smiths or Tim gauge, or most likely a digi-dash? (I think they can be calibrated to suit anyway).

You can get quite nice universal sender units on fleabay but they have a hump about 20mm high sticking out the top, the lucas ones are flush mounting with the gubbins in the tank (never liked the thought of electrics in the fuel tank though ) with just a spade terminal out the top.

Any help appreciated as I need to know what size hole to cut in the tank depending on if the sender will work ok!

I got my gauges and senders from ETB
Great service - one sender failed after 6 months and replaced FOC - they pulled it apart and found it was a faulty solder joint

Ian

There's definitely no reason to be concerned by the in tank electrics on a Landrover sender - I've owned Landrovers with these for more years than I want to mention with no problems other than those caused by incompetant previous owners (incorrect wiring isn't always obvious until you run out of fuel!)

As an aftermarket guage, just make sure that it alows you to calibrate the full and empty signals from the sender. Otherwise, I have found the Landrover senders to be extremely reliable (though not particularly linear) My personal preferance is the later three terminal units - signal, ground and low fuel warning, though this may be due to the fact that I own a 101 ambulance (8mpg on a good day - 20 miles warning before you run out of petrol can be useful!)