stock factory-original fuel pickup. 175k miles on the truck. Never had the tank out of the truck or anything.
I suppose I could probably answer my own question by dropping the tank, but like I said I really dont have the time to mess around with my own truck. I was just wondering if anyone else has had a similar problem.
That stuff is weird forsure. There is two different problems in this thread, we kinda got side tracked. duratothemax seems like he has some type blockage in his tank causing less usable volume (probably concrete lol), or a shortened pickup. Everyone else's gauges are just reading wrong.
Before you put a sump in the tank, drop the tank and rebuild the pickup assembly. There are no tank baffles but the pickup has its own bowl assembly with a one way valve in it.
I would be prepared to rebuild the pickup as it sounds like you have a cracked pickup tube. The tube is a plastic corriguated tube and could crack easily in one of the corriguations. Replace the tube with fuel rated hose and a small loop as the pickup basket is spring loaded and actually presses against the bottom of the tank to allow for flex in the bottom of the tank.
alright good so its not just me.
Maybe ill put one of those sumps on my tank. Its gonna be hard to cut into the bottom of my tank though. And im paranoid Ill hit the sump on something and knock/break it off...