BroncoII4x4.com

I have an 86 Bronco II, and even though I know it's supposed to have a 23 gallon gas tank, when my gauge approaches empty, and I fill it, I never fill it more than 12 gallons. Could a previous owner possibly have put a smaller tank in, and if so, how can I tall? If it's the gauge, can anyone tell me what it would take to fix it? (I'm not mechanical, and YES, I am female)

almost all bronco II are that way.

Rockcrawler wrote:almost all bronco II are that way.

What way? Crappy gauges?

dont know why but all three i have had were that way. Maybe ford was just cheap and put the wrong gage in the tank like off a ranger instead of one made for a bronco II gas tank.

When my gas guage didn't work I replaced the whole assembly in the gas tank, (It's a combination fuelpump/gas guage sender unit).
The sender unit part which sends a signal to the guage on the dash, is made up of a float on a metal rod attached to a electrical devise I believe is called a slide-wire. As the level of gas in the tank goes down the float follows it and changes the position of the slidewire. That in turn alters the signal back to the guage on the dash.The guage reacts accordingly to reflect the lower gas level.

It's clear the set-up is poorly calibrated. Theres still plenty of gas when the thing registers empty and once the tank is filled up full, the gas guage pointer is way up past the full mark. If I had known this is how it was gonna work after I replacing the thing, I would have tried mayby bending the rod to have the float actually closer to the bottom of the tank when the guage was reading empty.

The drawback: the guage would stay stuck on full for an even longer period of time before it started to react to the level than it does now. ( Ever notice how it stays on full for a long time and once it starts to go down it does so seemingly faster than seems right.).

Oh well at least, as it works, it's predictable. I figure mine still has about 5-7 gallons in it when reaching empty.

dave

mines an 84 and almost dead accurate when it reads empty i put 21 gallons in it

And you probably have the same 23 gallon tank later BII's have. Doesn't your '86 have a single fuelpump where my '88 has the two pumps. Mayby when Ford re-engineered the pump/sender unit assy in the tank they screwed up on the calibration.
dave

hey be thankfull it works ..... you could be counting miles like me every time you fill up .... oh and REMEMBER TO CARRY A GAS CAN IF YOU ARE COUNTING MILES
...... LEARNED THAT THE HARD WAY...

What is your guys' average gas mileage?

3:73 gears and 33/13.50-15 tires with the 2.9 I get in town 14 to 15 on freeways I get at most 17. Might help to go to 4:88's!

3:73 gears and 33/13.50-15 tires with the 2.9 I get in town 14 to 15 on freeways I get at most 17. Might help to go to 4:88's!

i gert an average of 18 in town, and 22 on freeway in mine ..... but thats still all stock... and its an 89 with a 5 speed

Between my Rangers and my BII's the gauges seemed to work till about half a tank and then they would dive to the E mark. Sometimes it would crawl back up and go back down. The sending unit in the tank seems to get a flat spot. I would always set the trip meter and ran till about 228 miles. I never ran out of fuel and I would put in 12 to 14 gallons even when I was trail driving. I figure I was getting 15-16 mpg with 4:10's and 34's carbed 2.8's.