Saturday 30th November - The Triumph goes into storage and fuel gauge issues with the Zetec

 Due to lack of car parking at my place I was able to find a space to keep my Triumph over the winter while I decide whether to keep it or sell. At present, it looks like I will be selling it, but prices are down at the moment, so I'm better off waiting a while until the time is right. 

So early Saturday morning I made the journey up the A12 to the North Essex/Suffolk border where the car is going to be stored. Once warmed up it ran well and I had a good journey. I have to say though, it's just not doing anything for me at the moment. I just don't get a buzz from driving it like I do the Cortina's. 

I had a lift back from Essex/Suffolk from good friend Colin Wake who was also coming to my place and try and sort out the fuel gauge on my Zetec Cortina. 

The gauge on the Cortina has never been right and will only read just over half even when it's full. It's something to do with the fact that it has a Retro Ford injection fuel tank fitted and the sender unit isn't compatible with the fuel gauge. 

I had been made aware of a device called 'Gauge Wizard'. Its a small device that fits in between the sender unit and the fuel gauge, so I purchased one. You can alter the settings to empty, quarter full, half full, three quarters full and full. 

To be able to do this though, you need to empty the fuel tank completely and then measure the resistance at the sender unit at each point. So basically, the tank holds eight gallons, so once empty, we then measure the resistance at empty, then put two gallons back in and measure that as that will be quarter tank. We then put another two gallons in and measure for half tank, etc.etc. 

I recorded the figures on my garage wall, in case I ever need to use them again. With the fuel tank now completely full, Colin then set about programming the device to be compatible with the fuel gauge. 

The gauge wizard instructions are somewhat more confusing than they need to be, but Colin sussed it out in the end and we finally managed to get the gauge reading 'full' with a full tank of petrol. (It had never done that before). I wont know if it's completely right until I start using it and start using up the petrol, but the initial signs are good. So hopefully, that's another job off of the list.