Fuel Gage a Go!

While I was under the car fixing the tank leak I checked the tank for a sending unit. The top of the tank had the studs as if one was installed but no wires coming off of the terminals. Someone had put a eye connector on a ground with out the wire. Well this was a start. The first thing I did was to reduce 12 volts to 6 volts to the original fuel gage. I had built a voltage reducer for the 35 Ford that I ended up not needing so I bolted this under the dash near the gage cluster. You can use a resister for this but I used what I had. Also this is heavy duty and can run multiple applications.

    Once I hooked up the power to the gage and turned on the switch the gage moved all the way to full. A good sign but we are not there yet. I still had to run a wire from the tank sender tot the gage as well as a ground from the tank to a ground.

    Prior to this project I was messing around in the trunk and found a wire marked fuel sending! How awesome, the wire was already run. I only had to feed it from the trunk to the tank. There was already a wire running to the fuel pump that was mounted at the tank so I took that route.

    The connectors for the unit on top of the tank was right at the top edge of the tank with about 2 inches to work with between the tank and the trunk floor. I was able to make the connections without dropping the tank. The sending terminal was easy as it was just a nut and a wrench was easily maneuvered in the small space. The ground was a bit more tedious. It required a phillips head screw driver and no way did I have one that short! I ended up using one for a cordless drill and a 1/4 inch wrench to turn it. It took a bit of patience but I finally got the old connector off and a new one with wire on. I terminated the other end with the fuel pump ground.

    All that was left was to connect the dash end of the sending wire to the gage and test it out!