How do I get to the sensor in my 87 300E? Sbourg describes an easy fix in his 201. I do not see a door under my trunk carpet. Is it under the rear seat or on the side?...
thanks

I believe the tank is like my 201 - in the trunk just behind the rear seatback. I.e., the top of the tank is just below the package shelf and the rear speakers. You detach the carpet from the vertical panel at the front of the trunk to access it.

Steve

__________________
'91 MB 190E 2.3
'08 RAV4 Ltd 3.5
'83 Lazy Daze m'home 5.7

sbourg
You are correct. The tank is right behind the vertical bulkhead in the trunk. The electrical connection came off easily. The large nut holding the sender in was hard to remove. My channel locks are too small. I used a pipe wrench with tape on the jaws. It was tight in my opinion. When reinstalling it I did not tighten it near as much as before. The seal system looked very positive. The sender came out and dripped a little-not bad. There was no screw at the bottom I could remove. The whole sender is a slim, perhaps 1.5" diameter aluminum cylinder with a white plastic head. The bottom was a black piece of plastic with a small, 4-5 mm, recessed nut. The nut had a small amount of screw protruding. I did not want to twist the white plastic top part while holding the cylinder to try to loosen the bottom. I decided to just spray some Chemtool carb cleaner down into the sender and hope. I only saw one bounce today after reassembly. I should be seeing more now and will watch closely
Can you tell me a way to take the sender apart? Do you know how tight the senderr loking nut should be?
Thanks.

"The bottom was a black piece of plastic with a small, 4-5 mm, recessed nut. The nut had a small amount of screw protruding."

This nut is what you need to remove - it holds the whole assembly together. Remove the gunk around it with a toothpick or such, then remove it with sturdy needle-nose pliers. The bottom will slip off, then the aluminum tube, exposing the mechanism. There are alignment tabs for reassembly, then screw the nut back on. The slidewires can be polished carefully with an eraser, then wiped w. q-tip and alcohol.

Steve

__________________
'91 MB 190E 2.3
'08 RAV4 Ltd 3.5
'83 Lazy Daze m'home 5.7

I have not pulled the sender again but I have an order of magnitude less jumping in the fuel guage. Occ bounce (perhaps when hitting a bump) and I am lookinng for trouble. Anyway it is much better.

You might try pulling the instrument panel, removing the gauge and placing a drop of very light (jeweler's) oil on the needle's shaft.

I changed the sender on the 1983 300SD and the needle still remained erratic - the oil fixed it for once and for all. (If anyone cares, this thing bugged me for 5 years!). While you have the panel out, check that all the ground (brown wires) connections in there are clean - if not use some emery cloth to celan them up.