The way it was 'splained to me, and this works for my 84...the first mark is
1/4 tank gone, the second is 1/2 The third is 3/4 and the top of the red
zone is 1/4 tank left.  It's not "Reserve" but it's what is considered to be
the end of the 'safe' fuel capacity zone from a German Engineer's point of
veiw.
The spacing on the gauge face and the relative size of the lines has nothing
to do with anything that I can see..At first, since the first line is about
halfway across the dial and is twice as big as the other white marks, I just
thought automatically it was 'half-full'.  And I thought the last white line
was quarter full, leaving the Red to mean "reserve"...but someone set me
straight...
  Don Hanson

On Tue, Oct 20, 2009 at 11:23 AM, David Beierl <dbeierl@attglobal.net>wrote:

> At 01:26 PM 10/20/2009, Rocket J Squirrel wrote:
>
>> Say . . . that fifths viewpoint is a good one and it fits how the dial is
>> divided up, nearly. The tank holds 16 gallons (US), the top of the red
>> "reserve" area is said to be 2.6 gallons, a fifth of 16 is 3.2 gallons, so
>> that's purt' darn close, too.
>>
>
> May help to remember that it's really a 60-liter (15.86 gal) tank,
> and that the reserve is ten liters.  There's no mark on the gauge
> corresponding to 3/4 -- the first one is what I would call half, and
> on both my vans it's been pretty near half mileage-wise.
>
> Yrs,
> David
>