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Air pocket?


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Since I bought my truck, I've noticed that we cannot fill it up to the full mark. Now we just made a trip to Arizona, driving out there and on the way back we were able to fill it up more as well as the gauge reading higher. Once we got back to California it went back to the way it was before. Could there be some sort of air pocket causing this? Has anyone ever experienced anything like this.

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Sounds more like an issue with the sending unit. Maybe the float sunk a little, maybe the resistor it moves is dirty. All I can think of for why it would take more in Arizona is that the gas nozzles might be slightly different due to CARB or something and cut off a little sooner.

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I believe if the charcoal canister is not allowing vapors to pass through that it could create a gas bubble in the tank. How many gallons are you putting in? When Mine is on E I get between 17 and 18.5 gallons in, even though it's reportedly a 21 gallon tank. The needle in the cluster does read full for me afterwards though.

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Well that aint right, when that happens, do you then still try to push through it and see if it'll take more? You know you can hear it fill up when it's getting full, do you ever get the sense that the tank is full? The low reading might be off about 7 or 8 gallons because even when it's showing empty you should still have atleast 3-5 gallon reserve.

 

You should try running it out of gas, take a 2 gallon can of gas with you of course, run it out of gas and note 1. how long it sits on E before it actually runs out, and 2. you should know how many miles you can literally squeeze out of a tank, to the last drop, so reset your trip meter the next time you fill up. This way, in the future, if you reset your trip meter every fill up, you'll know when you're running on fumes because you've got a mileage baseline on your tank. Those things will essentially paint the picture for you of where your fuel tank and reading really stands.

 

I think for my 94 auto 4x4 with 31" tires (when I still owned the truck, that is) I would get around 280 miles to a tank with mixed driving. 300 miles on a tank was doing pretty good and all highway miles. And that's using big fat spark NGK V-power plugs, properly inflated tires, Mobil 1 10w30 synthetic oil, high grade filter, K&N air filter, so I was really pushing to make my truck as fuel efficient as possible.

Edited by gv280z
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I try to keep the tires at good ranges (45psi), they are 31s the filter is stock and last I checked was really clean. I do need to change the oil (we just did our AZ trip), as well as plugs and wires. I did try to fill up past what it normal stopped at only to over fill it and upset my boyfriend. He was really mad at me.

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how much did it take between stopping and then over flowing? Like, 1 gallon, half a gallon or 3 or 4 gallons? There is a normal stopping point where it will trigger the pump to shut but on an empty fill up that should be around 17.5 - 18 gallons.

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Yep I'm with silverton on this one as well... unlesss... you stop to fill up when the light on the dash lights up for the first time? The truck ( and the electrical engineer who thought this was a good idea ) has this thing where it will light up the "low fuel" light on the dash a first time when there is still 5 gallons left.... that's 20% of the whole tank. That's when my wife starts looking for fuel stations to fill up the truck. That's also good for another 75 miles or so of driving if everything is mechanically alright with the truck ( barring a clogged carbon canister). So if we add that to the 186 miles that you have and the 3 gallons or so from 1/4 to E mark, another 55 miles or so, that is deep into the 300 miles per tank.

Edited by SpecialWarr
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