How to repair a sender unit

Have you got problems with your sender unit on your type 2? i.e. is your gauge giving inacurate readings, or worse not working at all?. If so on this page I will show you how to repaire them! Yes they are repairable.

If your sender unit gives up the ghost, the first thing you will have to do is get to it. You can only do this two ways, you can either take out the engine, or cut a hole above the sender unit as shown in picture 1. You will need to make sure you get to the right place, so if you measure 750mm from the o/s of the side of the van, then 110mm from the back where the back of the seat is. you will have the center of your hole. The size of the hole to cut out will have to be about 130mm x170mm . You will then see the sender unit as in picture 2. this particular sender is an early one, and is held in by 5 bolts. Once you have taken the sender out, you can then take the outer sleeve off by undoing the little nut at the bottom, which is held fixed by a small brass tab which you can bend back with a screw driver. What will greet you then is picture 3. What normally makes them fail to work, is the thin fuse like wire that runs from one of the contacts as shown in picture 6, then up and around the black plastic holder as shown in picture 5, then down the other side to the other contact in picture 6. What normally happens when the sender units stop working is the thin wire breaks, but you can renew it with 5 amp fuse wire, it is a bit fiddly as the wire has to be pulled quite tight as you re solder it to the contacts that you see in picture 6. If on the other hand your sender is just giving inaccurate readings, or is sticking. and the thin wires are in place.try using some wire wool on the metal shaft to clean it. I did this to one gauge that was sticking, and it is now working fine. And so is the other one that I renewed the thin wires on. I cannot promise that this will work everytime, but I have now repaired and tested three gauges that were previously not working doing as I have described and they work fine now. worth a try as a new one is about £25.00. Oh I almost forgot, once the job was done, I made up a hinged cover plate out of a piece of scrap steel so that I could get to it again if needs be.