fuel sensor ripoff!!!

[jerry]

replaced a fuel sensor in the monster last year £50 now need another and its £97 cant be right but thats what Moto rapido tell me ???...must be an alternative to Ducati ripoff ..who makes it ? any ideas.

apparently the switch is repairable if it sticks .....say Moto rapido any ideas ????

[Stuart42]

Me again.

Fuel sensor was playing up on my SS and read somewhere to blow it out with an air line, worked a treat.

Cheers
Stuart

[jerry]

I will try that Stu as i aint going to pay ripoff price for a suspect part.Its on the S4 in thailand so will have to wait till I return there.

[jerry]

Well I have blown it out with an airline and cleaned the switch ,It works fine when I put multimeter across the switch circuit and the wiring to the lamp on the dash is all fine as is the bulb so the circuit works fine but when there is fuel back in the tank it does not work ????? The switch is a cheapo piece of crap and not worth £92 must be an alternative.

[Capo]

The sensor contains a float that rides on a shaft within the sensors tubular body, a coil of wire is molded into the wall of the tube. The passage of the float within the tube, changes the resistance of the coil, this causes the low fuel light to illuminate when the resistance reaches a predetermined setting. I'm not sure wether it's the ECU or the dash that looks at the resistance. Other than the float sticking, there is not much to go wrong with the sensor, if you have a circuit and the float is free, then you could have a fault with the device thal 'looks' at the circuit or indeed (and more porbable) the wiring from the sensor to the monitoring device. Considering that its the resistance that is being monitored any high resistance contact in the wiring will cause false operation.

[jerry]

I will check the switch resistance again i fear it may be high .

I just dont like forking out £97 for something so poorly made that probably cost less than £5 to make.
also the damn thing is unobtanium has to be ordered from dealers.

[Capo]

If you have the sensor out, you can slowly move the float from its end position while observing an ohmeter connected to the coil wires.

You would be more pissed off if you fork out the £97 only to find it did not solve the problem.

[jerry]

I did that its definitely switching on and off as the float moves the ohms are only 0.686 so i rechon thats low . why its not working is a mystery the circuits to the dash are proven also ????? dirrrr.

i am going on a 1500 mile round trip end of the week to northern thailand so i will just have to fill the tank and rely on keeping tabs on the Kilometre counter.
cant get a replacement until i go to UK .

jerry