The_architect
Jedi Trainee
Offline
Boinkster I thought you did pretty well with the drawing. One thing I've noticed, those early gauges can be expensive--they are delicate things, with that copper wire being thinner than a human hair. Mine was messed up and I had it rebuilt rather than buying one of unknown quality off of ebay.
I agree with Kim about the gauge and sender needing to be calibrated to each other. These are not precisely made components. I think my new sender put out about 80 ohms as opposed to 70, but that's close enough.
I bought my sender new. It took me a second try before I got one that worked--so do measure the resistance with an ohmmeter before you mount it in your car.
You can temporarily set up the gauge an a sender with a 12V power supply to see if they work. It takes very little current to make them go. I set the whole thing up on the bench and calibrated them before I mounted the sender in the gas tank or the gauge in the dash.
Another thing that I did was replace the new sender's plastic float with a brass one like this: brass fuel sender float since there are reports of the plastic ones leaking. These seem to be a universal size. The ebay one I have listed seems to be a bit on the pricey side. Shop around.
Charlie
I agree with Kim about the gauge and sender needing to be calibrated to each other. These are not precisely made components. I think my new sender put out about 80 ohms as opposed to 70, but that's close enough.
I bought my sender new. It took me a second try before I got one that worked--so do measure the resistance with an ohmmeter before you mount it in your car.
You can temporarily set up the gauge an a sender with a 12V power supply to see if they work. It takes very little current to make them go. I set the whole thing up on the bench and calibrated them before I mounted the sender in the gas tank or the gauge in the dash.
Another thing that I did was replace the new sender's plastic float with a brass one like this: brass fuel sender float since there are reports of the plastic ones leaking. These seem to be a universal size. The ebay one I have listed seems to be a bit on the pricey side. Shop around.
Charlie