Fuel Tank Relocation (and new Rear Bumper design)
- Thread starter jkeith.w
- Start date
phattyduck
Elite Member
The factory sender is a standard potentiometer. As long as the fuel sender calibrator can act like a potentiometer, it should work. The gauge on the dash may be digitally driven, but that is not what you are interfacing with - there is a signal conditioning circuit in the cluster that takes a standard resistance input then drives the gauge that you aren't going to mess with.
-Charlie
2TH4IST
Member
The fuel level calibrators will work for 98 and older trucks (confirm you have a 3 screw gauge) ground style fuel sender (mechanical odo/trip meters)
99 and newer do not use a ground type fuel sender (4 screw gauge). They operate on a 5v refrence on the yellow/red wire and the brown/black wire is signal from sender (regulated 5v through sender). Digital odo/trip meter.
So, at least with the speed way calibrator, (I'm assuming they are all the same) they can NOT see any voltage on its signal inputs or outputs or it will kill the calibrator.
I'll snap a pic of a 99+ level sender and you can clearly see heat build up from current going through it.
Btw the used 99 sender I have reads 140 ohms empty and 8 ohms full, so that also throws a wrench in there lol.
I was (need to mod a new oem sender now) going to use a vdo floatless sender as it's 10 ohm empty 180 ohms full. But seeing that the ohms are bass ackwards that it out. Then I looked a standard potentiometer vdo senders and they all seem to be ground type senders. So time to mod a new oem sender to fit into the floatless vdo 5 hole port. Yay.
Just tested my 2000's sender, just filled it this morning. Key on engine off, 5v+ on yellow/red. 10.2mv+ on brown/black. So yeah, not a normal sender, boo.
99 and newer do not use a ground type fuel sender (4 screw gauge). They operate on a 5v refrence on the yellow/red wire and the brown/black wire is signal from sender (regulated 5v through sender). Digital odo/trip meter.
So, at least with the speed way calibrator, (I'm assuming they are all the same) they can NOT see any voltage on its signal inputs or outputs or it will kill the calibrator.
I'll snap a pic of a 99+ level sender and you can clearly see heat build up from current going through it.
Btw the used 99 sender I have reads 140 ohms empty and 8 ohms full, so that also throws a wrench in there lol.
I was (need to mod a new oem sender now) going to use a vdo floatless sender as it's 10 ohm empty 180 ohms full. But seeing that the ohms are bass ackwards that it out. Then I looked a standard potentiometer vdo senders and they all seem to be ground type senders. So time to mod a new oem sender to fit into the floatless vdo 5 hole port. Yay.
Just tested my 2000's sender, just filled it this morning. Key on engine off, 5v+ on yellow/red. 10.2mv+ on brown/black. So yeah, not a normal sender, boo.
Figure out a kit that can use the toyota stuff and sell it. I bet you'd make a good chunk of cash that way. Might be tough to figure out the custom bracketry and such but you'd have a lot of buyers lined up.
MN4runnerman
Senior Member
I was initially gonna copy that guy exactly and modify the toyota pump and sender and the tank to fit nicely. Then saw the fuel level modules thinking they’d work. Next time I’m doing the extra work and modifying the OEM stuff. Sheet metal welding isn’t awful just go slow
phattyduck
Elite Member
That explains it. It sounds like the dash is expecting a 0-5V signal (basically). The 'error' FSM image above is what you would see when 5V is supplied, but to check without power you need to use resistance.
It would be a fairly simple circuit to translate a standard sender input to a 0-5V signal... but I don't think many people will want a little hand wired breadboard running their fuel gauge.
-Charlie
AssBurns
New member
THIS^^^
When I initially did this I kept having issues with the tank building pressure and if I was hard on the throttle (more exhaust heat) the tank would build a ton of pressure and leak out. Once I did a down turn to point down and out from under the frame rail, I never had any issues since.
2TH4IST
Member
I'm ok with bread boards lol. I'll look into the 0-5v simulator/converter, I found a fuel potentiometer to digital 0-5v converter but it's 110 bucks and didn't dig into it to much.
Team_Jake
Member
So you're saying cut off the exhaust just after the muffler, and add a pipe turning the exhaust toward the frame rail and then down (like how [MENTION=67615]Dirtco[/MENTION] did his exhaust)?
<a data-flickr-embed="true" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/156493849@N03/49457896852/in/dateposted-public/" title="fullsizeoutput_57f"><img src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/49457896852_a586c5bc8e_b.jpg" width="768" height="1024" alt="fullsizeoutput_57f"></a><script async src="//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Obviously I want to keep my exhaust out of the way from any obstacles.
Link?
MN4runnerman
Senior Member
It did not read backwards. Fuel gauge didn’t move at all
Can someone give me a quick and dirty summarization of what I’ll need to do with my 1996 I plan to convert to an f150 fuel tank this summer.
I have eimkeith f150 brackets, f150 aux tank with fuel pump from rock auto, fuel tank straps, and I also bought an f150 fuel gauge and sender from auto meter.
I sort of want it to all work like factory and maybe not use the auto meter stuff if I don’t have to if it’s easy enough. But I guess if push came to shove I could redo everything put the pump on a switch and use my auto meter gauge for fuel level and ignore the factory fuel gage in the cluster.
Thanks
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I have eimkeith f150 brackets, f150 aux tank with fuel pump from rock auto, fuel tank straps, and I also bought an f150 fuel gauge and sender from auto meter.
I sort of want it to all work like factory and maybe not use the auto meter stuff if I don’t have to if it’s easy enough. But I guess if push came to shove I could redo everything put the pump on a switch and use my auto meter gauge for fuel level and ignore the factory fuel gage in the cluster.
Thanks
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
2TH4IST
Member
[MENTION=319302]Bad Luck[/MENTION] Here is the link to it. Seems most people use these in their race car data logging systems or digital dashes as they require a 0-5v signal. Being 114 $ plus shipping and tax I don't want to spend that right now lol. We would use the flying lead version.
ICM Fuel Sender
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2TH4IST
Member
Quick and dirty - want it to operate like stock then you'll need to graft all stock toyota stuff into the tank and mod them accordlingly. A 96 should have basic fuel gauge (grounding style) unlike the 99+ runners. Some say you can bend the ford float to make it read properly but I'm not confirming that as I have a 2000 and can't use the ford sender.
Probably wouldn't be that hard to mount the oem toyota level sender onto the ford fuel pump assembly. And then adjust the float arm to work for the shallow f150 tank. I think the 98 and older runners still have the low fuel sensor so that will need to be adapted into the tank too.
All the info is in this thread and a quick Google search will net the rest of the stuff. Search "3rd gen 4runner f150 fuel tank swap".
AssBurns
New member
Yup that's pretty much what I did too. I ditched the 2nd cat and replaced it with a muffler, then it dumps out under the frame right next to the transfer-case.
I'll try to find a pic to share. Pretty sure I got a pic when it got installed.
jkeith.w
Official Vendor
[MENTION=118730]AssBurns[/MENTION] didn't yours read backwards?
AssBurns
New member
No mine didn't even read with the stock guage.
2TH4IST
Member
Well got the oem sender modded and swapped in. Had to much other stuff to do so I didn't take any measurements. Just some pics. Tank will go in next weekend as I left some tools at work. One thing I did was flip the float over so it "free spins" on the level arm. It creates more clearance on the top and all I had to do was adjust the roughly 45 degree bend in the arm and make the 90 degree for the float.
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