Fixed my fuel sending unit with a........

[Conroe Powdercoating]

my 51 cranbrook fuel guage goes up to approx half way and thats all its ever shown since I owned it. Today I yanked the sender out and via moving the arm found that the sender itself was working but the floats were soaked and heavy.

They were two pieces of round cork that looked to have been shellacked or something used to seal them who knows how long ago. (They look vintage and if you look at 'em just the right way, on one you can see a staining of the virgin Mary and on the other one Abraham Lincoln, I'll sell em, just sayin')

I of course dont have a shitpile of cork laying around, but I do have a weird assortment of used brass carb floats, so I strapped one to the arm basically laying the same way the cork was and BLAMMO, my guage works properly now! Yippee

Edited July 12, 2014 by Conroe Powdercoating

[55 Fargo]

Improvising like a tru 50s rodder....thumbs up Bro

[linus6948]

When I was fruitlessly trying to save me rusty varnish filled tank and non functioning sender the corks were like yours, I thought about drilling thru some new wine corks and shellacking them, but my tank was a hopeless 'terminal case" so I never tried it out, the brass float sounds like a much better solution to the problem.

[TodFitch]

Corks protected from soaking up the fuel by shellac were standard in the old days. But don't use that now: Alcohol is a solvent for shellac and will remove it rendering the float worthless in a very short period of time. If worse comes to worse, get a float off of a modern universal replacement sending unit.

[linus6948]

I started my redone fuel system with non ethanol 93octane gas and I`m swearing to myself I will continue to use only that. I travel 36miles one way to get it but I bring a lot of 5gal cans.

 

http://pure-gas.org/?stateprov=PA

[OldDad67]

When I was fruitlessly trying to save me rusty varnish filled tank and non functioning sender the corks were like yours, I thought about drilling thru some new wine corks and shellacking them, but my tank was a hopeless 'terminal case" so I never tried it out, the brass float sounds like a much better solution to the problem.

Just go to your local u-pull-it yard and take one of the floats out of a newer car. It's easy to do and cheap, plus the new floats are designed for new fuel. And they won't sink like a brass one. I bought some other stuff and they didn't even charge me for the float, I don't think they knew what it was. 

 

[Conroe Powdercoating]

brass float wont sink unless it has a hole in it.

[Niel Hoback]

I got my float from behind a garage where they had replaced someone's fuel pump. Free is good.