Instrument Pod

Fuel Gauge Calibration, for 89 and newer

My Owner's manual says that the tank holds somewhere north of 23 gallons. With the needle
on empty, I can get a little more than 20 gallons in there. Being the brilliant phd engineer that I
am, I figured that I could run it to the empty mark, throw in a few more miles to be sure, then do
the gauge calibration routine described in the manual.

So, it's 11:30pm, and the dr is tooling south on I-5 through deepest darkest Los Angeles on his
way home from a conference dinner. Guage is on emty, but it's OK 'cause I still have a couple
gallons left... Darn, the cruise control is acting up, won't hold 75 on this little uphill stretch north
of the Harbor freeway. I nurse it off the freeway, and manage to coast to within about 200 ft of
the only gas station within sight for miles. A little uphill shoving gets me within range, but I
can't quite get it up the driveway apron. A couple rather scruffy looking guys had been sitting
on a bus bench watching all this, and ran over--- fortunately to help push the car! Twenty ONE
gallons of Unocal's best filled it to the top. One of the guys wandered back from their bus
bench, and in broken spanglish asked for two dollars. I gave him a five, and figured my angels
were watching over me. He was surprised, walked back to the bench as I finished filling the car.
After some loud discussion between them, the two wandered back over to the station
attendant inside the bulletproof kiosk, trying to convince him (in Spanish) that they needed to
split the five bucks in half.


For those interested, the procedure for calibrating the fuel tank level system on '89+ cars is
detailed in section 20-19 of the service manual. Starting with an empty tank, add fifteen liters
(four gallons) of fuel to the tank. Allow the sender to settle for a few minutes. Pull the
operating lever for the display unit, and turn the ignition on while holding the lever. The
display will read "TANK EICHEN" (calibrate tank) in the left display, and "15 LITER" in the
right display. Press the reset button in the center console until "15" appears in the center
display. The system is now calibrated. Use this procedure after the instrument cluster is
removed or the tank sender is disconnected for any reason.

dr bob