The fuel gauge on my 2007 Ultra is flipping out. The needle jumps around like crazy. With half tank of gas it will jump over to full then bounce around in between. And does it until tank is empty. Anyone have that happen to their fuel gauge. Could it be gauge or sender?

 

My guess would be the gauge...Check all of your connections first...I have replaced a few gauges with the symptoms that you are describing and it corrected the problem.

 

Same thing happened to me. It was the sender and was fixed under warranty.

 

Sender here also, did same thing....Happened at 40000 Extended Warranty.

 

Your issue does sound like the sending unit is bad.

On my bike the issue was a bad tank ground. I added a ground strap to the sending unit, grounding it to the frame and cured my issue.

Keep in mind the gauge is positive and the sending unit is the ground side of the circuit.

 

Thanks for the input. So far we have 3 senders and 1 gauge.
I have a spare gauge and it is a lot easier to get to it than to the sender.I will try that first
JohnnyC. On my Ultra the sending unit is in the tank. I don't think I can install a ground strap from the sending unit in the tank to the frame. Am I missing something here? Ride defensively!

 

There should be a ground on the outside of the tank though?

 

Same symptoms here and it was the gauge for me. Lasted 8 years and 56K miles. My secondary problem was the new gauge had a clear lens compared to the other and I ended up replacing all four so they looked right -- Tom

 

I just made a ground lead for a direct connection. I simply took an 18 gauge wire, put a lug on one end, slipped it under one of the sending units bolts. I then threaded the single wire down my console and attached it to the bolt that held the tank down to the frame to fix mine.

It happened as a fluke while testing it with an ohm meter. I just used a lead to contact to ground and the gauge started working. After I thought it was the sending unit and had bought another one. Now I have a spare for my bike.

Your tank should already be grounded through mounts but maybe not a good solid electrical ground due to corrosion.

There's only two components involved. I was glad it wasn't the gauge.

 

Yes, I know this is a very old post, but I didn't see a resolution to the issue. Was this ever resolved? What was the fix? I'm currently reading different threads on fluctuating fuel gauge problems.