kz1100a fuel gauge sender replacement, options

So after a not so good of a time with my kz1000 csr fuel tank, I dropped money on a cleaner tank and I decided to get a kz1100a fuel tank for MORE FUEL   (I do plan on longer commutes). it does not come with a fuel level sender which my other tank lacked (had a fuel light).

My question: what are my options for a fuel level sender? For the time being I plan to block off the area but I would like a sender in the future because its COOL !!! I cannot for the life of me find a sender online so I'm wondering what I can do. For example, is the sender a resistance meter in which case i might be able to use a universal type? has anyone made their own custom senders? If it is a resistance meter, what is the ohms range? These types of questions... throw knowledge at me!!!

Im just weighing my options before I decide to try to install one. FYI I have a 1981 gpz550 meter cluster installed with the fuel gauge. The cluster installed better than i thought it would...

Yes the sender unit is a variable resistor - the upper and lower values are in the FSM in the filebase

The sender on my J has the range of 0 ohms, full showing on the guage, to 100 ohms, empty showing on the guage. 
when searching for a sender check they are correct for your tank. Kawasaki used 2 different sender units in that period. Circular mount and oval mount.

Thank you guys! Out here to save the day because I forgot to look at the service manual  . what i found for both kz1100a and gpz550 models is the resistance reading, like Warren pointed out, is 0.5-5.5 ohms at full and 102-118 ohms at empty. 

I do have the circular type, however availability is an issue. Most salvage companies would rather sell the whole fuel tank than separate the fuel level sender and such. If you guys have any creative solution for me to think about in the meantime, I'm all for it!

Partzilla has the fuel sending unit for the 1981 GPz550 for $94.41, which should be fine with your gauges

if not done already. investigate the fuel gauge in case it can be repaired. could be something simple like a broken wire or solder joint.
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While I dont have a fuel sender for the tank I'm getting, which this thread revolves around, I do have a gpz550 fuel sender that is very rusted and reads in the mega-ohm range so that might be useful!

I have an idea which is to take an aftermarket 0-190 ohm sender and limit it to 0-110 ohms or something like that through a means blocking its movement and adjusting the arm to have an appropriate range. Does anyone see a problem with this idea? I cannot for the life of me find a sender with the appropriate range, other than a Mazda miata sender 

I should also consider the possibility of doing electrical wizardry to increase or decease the ohm reading by either putting resistors in series or parallel to the sender. 

Can’t you rewind the resistor board in the sender you have? A series resistor will simply move the whole range up or down 

Wookie58 wrote:

Can’t you rewind the resistor board in the sender you have?
Im lost on what you intend from this. Sure, for the gpz550 i could do this but not for the kz1100 tank because I dont have a sender at all for it.
A series resistor will simply move the whole range up or down 
Electrical black magic. I am not very familiar with electric circuits so I'm not fully sure how a resistor could impact a sender reading. It was just something I saw when researching options. I should look into this more. 

After doing more research, I came upon the circuit boards that you can write in-line with the fuel level sender which can adjust the resistance output for the full- medium- empty positions and calculate a linear progression between them all to match the positions on the gauge.
Theoretically that would allow any fuel level sender to work. Think it's worth a shot?

This would potentially work to correct the calibration between the gauge and sensor, I guess first you need to find a suitable sensor