Fuel Tank removal and gauge fix

It took a while to get to this point. My fuel gauge has been unreliable since I bought the bike. It is a 2010 which has been ridden constantly and now has 120 000 on the clock.

Finally my gauge only showed 2 settings: Full and empty for the rest of the time. After doing my research here, I tried the Seafoam approach. Several times.....no luck. Then I checked out the price of a replacement - which is the whole unit - that brought tears to my eyes! Final choice was try to fix whatever was causing the issue.

We decided the problem must be the sender unit, which is unfortunately situated inside the fuel tank. I made notes when Cosmic Jumper said the tank is not too difficult to remove - only 3 bolts and it drops out the bottom. (Well that is after you have removed all plastic panels, the belly pan, the sub-chassis, several electronic connections, some rubber strips, etc). And another friend to lift the front wheel off the ground as well!

After all that, the problem was with these small fingers mounted above the float. My handy friend undid a tiny bolt, opened up the angle of the 'fingers' and tightened the bolt again. He says that most car radios have a similar problem so he was able to spot the problem immediately. The tank was nice and clean inside and after reassembly, the fuel gauge is working normally again.

I thought you might be interested to see a unit removed with the fuel pump, sender unit, fuel filter and float outside a tank. I have seen similar posted recently but that was badly damaged.

Happy to hear that you got it sorted Sue.

I don’t know whether I posted it or not, but one thing I found when I fixed the erratic fuel gauge issue was that the “wiper” (your 1st picture, above) on the sending unit was —not only were there crud deposits on the sending unit, but also the push nut securing the wire float arm to the wiper had worked loose. That allowed the wiper contacts to float in & out causing erratic contact with the circuit resistor. So after the wiper & resistor were cleaned I made sure that that push nut was firmly secured and the wiper “fingers” firmly in contact with the resistor.

A “simple” fix but a genuine PITA to sort.

Oh Man!..this all sounds like brain surgery to me. Removing the tank I could deal with but I hope I never have to go in there.

But if I do, thanks for a great insight and some good pics.

A cautionary tale for UK winter riders (salt corrosion) of the fuel tank.
After much studying on the interweb and finally purchasing a 09 Swing I decided to do a full strip down of all plastics to expose the frame.
True to what I had read, the welds of the frame were corroding because the paint had popped off the welds, quick coat of Rust Converter and topped off with fresh enamel paint.
The bigger concern was the fuel tank once I has removed the rubber curtains from it, the 2 leading bottom corners and the front face were badly corroded (not visible from below) requiring the removal of said tank (best removed empty) because it can be removed without lifting the front of the Swing but requires it to be lowered then rotated to remove from the front.
Luckily the tank rubbed down to clear metal which was then treated and covered with 5 coats of enamel paint and refitted.
I also made and fitted 6" of rubber mud flap to the bottom of the front mud guard as per interweb advise.
Happy riding all.

Oh that's exactly what happens to my bike.

I been tented to repair it myself, I did a research online and was almost impossible to find out nothing.

After reading your post I can see that is even more complex than I thought, how long would you say it took you to remove all the panels to get access? Is it really necessary to remove the tank or can the pump be taken out without removing?

Thanks