kz1100a fuel gauge sender replacement, options

My KZ1000K-1 (1981) has the round, five-bolt setup, while my K2 has the oval, six-bolt version.

This weekend ill be able to tinker with my gas tank. I also bought that gas gauge inverter and a 1986-1995 suzuki samurai fuel level sender because they seem similar to the one i need. I do not expect it to bolt up properly but ill figure something out. I'll try to take many pictures to help anyone that's in the same situation as me.

I've got a little experience in rewinding fuel tank senders. Mine was trashed, and I kept at it until I found a solution. So as long as the hardware is serviceable, rewinding can be done. Any old resistive wire can't be used.  rewound-fuel-sending-unit-works

Also, my fuel gage isn't damped. It works with a bimetallic heater. Same idea as the older household thermostats. The change in resistance leads to the bimetallic strip flexing more or less. Makes for a slow needle sweep. It's a good 30 seconds at least, to go from bike off to reading full in a full tank.

That makes so much more sense! I took a look at my KZP fuel gauge and it had a couple metallic strips with (if i remember correctly) a miniature wire wrapped around it. I had no idea how it worked.

This information will be useful, so thanks! I will probably do this to my gpz550 fuel level sender since it reads like 4 mega ohms

Does anyone know what the ohm reading is on the OEM fuel level sender at the half full position? The suzuki samurai sender is surprisingly within spec for resistance readings so I was wondering if it would read accurate in between the full and empty positions. 

Its linear.
0 ohm full,
50 ohm half a tank,
100 ohm empty.

Oh well I thought i could get away without using the resistance converter but I cant  . Mine reads 32 ohms at half.

I should update you guys. It didn't work . With the fuel level sender connected directly to the harness, the gauge worked fine. With the fuel level sender connected to the resistance converter, the gauge never read above empty even with a lot of adjusting on the converter. It is very possible that user error was involved but I'm not feeling so confident in this idea anymore. If anyone has an idea im all ears. Im at the point where it would be the most promising to make my own level sender.

Out of curiosity i also got one of these units and can confirm they do NOT do what they say they will.
Different results to Bounds post for me.
i have a spare sender so rigged it up off the bike. Foll9wed their set up procedure several times with the same results.
for me, the guage worked EXACTLY as it did without the unit fitted. My main interest was to remove the fuel slosh effect on the guage but no matter what i did to the unit the guage reacted exactly the same.

Warren3200gt wrote:

Out of curiosity i also got one of these units and can confirm they do NOT do what they say they will.
Different results to Bounds post for me.
i have a spare sender so rigged it up off the bike. Foll9wed their set up procedure several times with the same results.
for me, the guage worked EXACTLY as it did without the unit fitted. My main interest was to remove the fuel slosh effect on the guage but no matter what i did to the unit the guage reacted exactly the same.

Well that sucks!!!!
PS: don’t know if you have seen my build update Warren but your pistons look awesome

I dont know the difference between modern gauges and our gauges but it may be possible that these units only work properly with modern gauges? I might mess with the unit this weekend and see what the resistance output is for funzies.

I did a bit of messing around this weekend on the gauges and figured out for sure that the fuel sender resistance converter doesnt work with the kz/gpz fuel gauge. Why? I have absolutely no idea. I bought a cheap Amazon universal 240-33 ohm fuel gauge for testing and they converter works with that one perfectly!!!!

I'm not fully sure what to do with this info but if I decide to fit the cheap fuel gauge on my bike, I'll let you guys know with pictures or whatever I do(I want to use the OEM housing for the fuel gauge). If anyone has any questions, I'd gladly answer to the best of my ability.