Clem,
I'm also a UK FW owner. I have had a Navman ( = Northstar) plotter with the fuel sender fitted to my '04 245 Sundowner for a few years now. It's very accurate even before it's fully calibrated. There is no sender fitted as standard to fuel injected engines of that vintage.
I originally bought a seperate Navman gauge/ sender, hoping it would fit where the blank gauge was on my dash ( where your compass is); it didn't , it is far too deep.!
The instructions recommend a filter be fitted before the sender. I did this, in hindsight it probably wasn't necessary as the fuel tank is plastic and there can't be any rust debris etc. One thing to be careful about is the cable; the potting compound used to seal the cable to the sender is very brittle and the cable can break right at the sender; my second sensor is attached to the fuel hose with a cable tie to stop it moving. There are at least 2 senders available with different plugs, the stand alone fuel flow meter sender plug is different to the one that connects to a plotter ( but an adapter cable is available).
Regarding the wiring, my plotter is wired so it is always connected to power when the battery switch is on. There is an option in the menu for the unit to switch itself on automatically when connected to power; I chose to switch mine on manually ( can't remember why !). The unit is very sensitive to voltage drop ( my Garmin fishfinder, wired to the same fuse box, isn't). Whenever I started the engine, the unit would switch off. If you find this is the case, there is a mod involving a 12v alarm battery/ diode I carried out which I can give you details of. Or, come to think about it, of course, the auto switch on option might have solved it !
Graham
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