Irish Mini Owners Club

I fill my tank and the needle stays up on the roof for about 50 miles, then drops to half ways for about 50 miles, then suddenly drops to the red where I know I can get 50 or more miles. Never tried to go further than 50 on the red. Is this normal? I would like a guage that would drop progressively as the fuel was being used up. Is there anything I can do?

What clocks are you using Standard or changed?
How big is your tank?most minis will comfortably do 200miles on a tank.
The sudden drops would suggest that the sender is faulty.

When l fill mine it will read 3/4 full and then drop to half full after around 50 miles. As Woody says , you will be grand driving in excess of 200 miles to a tank, 280 MAX. Personally, I always take a reading after filling up and refill when I reach the 240 mile mark and there is always a gallon or more left in there. It takes a bit of getting used to driving around for a week or more with the needle in the red, but I don't take any notice of it anymore. It's the miles I count!

Rights, Thank you both. My mini is a 1990 City E with standard clocks and tank. I can certainly do it the milage way as suggested but I thought maybe someone might have come up with a way of curing the problem. Is it the sender, the float or the clock that's at fault?

Had a similar problem on my 72 850 . I changed the float and sender in the tank and it's working fine. now .. Easier job to do this first than take out gauge.
Hope this helps

Thoese clocks are usually reliable so I'd change the fuel sender in the tank.

Had similar problem to this,Float in the sender unit was cracked and filling with petrol hence giving an erratic reading, replaced float (E-bay) job sorted,Hope this helps !!

Thank you all. I had a sneaky suspicion ti might be the float. I'll deal with it later. For now, I'll keep an eye on the milage. Go raibh maith agaibh.

sender broken in mine too. out of interest what's the capacity of a standard tank in a 99mpi? thanks

33 1/2 liters

To get a more accurate fuel gauge I took out the sender and bent the wire so that the float pointed towards the back of the tank when re-assembled. It was a bit tricky to get right though, but worth it.