I have a vintage SW 12V fuel gauge in my 32 with a new sending unit with matching ohms. Fill up the tank, gauge shows 1/4. When it gets towards the E mark, time to stop. Never got it figured out. Sender grounded, gauge grounded, something missing. It does fill the hole nicely.
Ever look into how the float/arm sweeps within the tank? Or how it read thru the sweeping motion outside of the tank? That’s pretty much why I tested everything outside of the car.
The 2 with a gauge are much better than the one without, the without I'm unscrewing the cap to try and peak in pretty much everytime I drive it. I've only ran out twice in the 16 yrs on the road and thankfully coasted into a station both times, but what will always stick with me is that one of those times was in the funeral procession of a fellow club member. I missed parking with the other club cars and half of the grave side memorial do to no gauge.
I thought my 57 vette was getting about 45 MPG on the way to the Bloomington Vette show until It died in St Louis LOL . Drove it for about 10 years after guessing . Finally fixed it. My cars all have working fuel gauges now.
My '31 sedan had the old marine Moon tank with the clear top-to-bottom sight hose and I liked that. My '55 F100 was a year's long debacle with crappy repro parts, adjustments, returns and I never did get it so that I could trust it. I carried a stick under the seat. My bitch with my current cars is that, although they have working gauges, I don't really know when they are reading E, how much is really left, so I keep them full. I haven't run out of gas on the road since just after high school. I've driven most of my hot rods as dailys, and about half of them had a working gas gauge, it's never been a big priority one way or the other.
If you look at this picture, you will see, there is large void in the middle of the tank, to clear the quickchange, and have suspension travel. Even if you tie the two legs together, it would read far different in the range from a full, to empty tank. I went with the "reserve" idea from the early VW's, and it has worked well for the 25 years, and 7 or so cars with this setup. The picture is deceiving as it has a silver battery box on the pass side.
When I was a teenager I owned a 1977 (28 years ago) Ford Granada that did not have a fuel gauge and had a pretty bad toe in problem that at that time I didn't understand how to fix it I thought I had bent my frame because I drove off a curb and hit a rock screwing around. Anyways that car got a solid 9 miles a gallon all the time, generally I had a little 5-in wire bound notebook that I would write the mileage on and figure out how many miles I had by how many gallons of fuel I bought, because I was a teenager and pretty much broke all the time and so were my friends some of them would want to push how far the car would go to go to a cheaper gas station I don't know how many times I ended up walking because of running out of the gas but after that car the entire rest of my adult life of driving junk (I still don't drive anything new Everything is old as dirt in automotive terms), One of the first things I do after I get the car starting and stopping is fix the gas gauge... I don't like pushing nor do I like walking. So I am now building my Ford Model A pickup (early 31), I am putting a early Mustang fuel tank all the way in the back of the bed because I am pretty sure I can hide it and still have a full functioning bed floor anyways, when I bought the sending unit I figured out what the ohm rating was for the gauge Then looking around I found a Stewart Warner fuel gauge that has almost the exact same OHM reading I would assume this was deliberate but I don't know for sure All I know is I was ecstatic to not have to rely on a stick that smells like fuel that would be kept behind the seat lol.
I use this technique with my T Bucket. I built that car as simple as possible, with very few gauges and switches. In 3 years and 15,000 miles I have ran out of gas once. Luckily it was right in front of a gas station.
Had a '48 plym. that had an Olds 455 & an 11 gallon tank, later a 16 gallon tank & 331 Hemi. No guage, only ran out of gas twice & that was with the 11. After replacing the sending unit my '60 Plym has a working gas guage.
In 47 years of my car, Nope! Just watch the odometer. The model A cluster has no room for it. Bad enough I had to use a dual oil pressure/temp gauge out of a British sports car. And I'm not going to drill into or under the dash. I also have a emergency warning on mine.....When the electric fuel pump starts defibrillating out of control, I'm really in trouble!
When I built my roadster I had an original set of wings gauges, so I was sure to use the fuel gauge. In my dad's A coupe he has dual temp gauges for the flathead, oil, and amps. I didn't want to redo what he did so I just use a cut down yard stick in the tank. With the 11 gallon tank it's been working out okay, I don't miss the gauge and I've never had a problem on rod runs, just fill up at all the fuel stops.
Would describing someone as "not driving with a full tank" be the hot rod equivalent of "not playing with a full deck"?
My car is in a similar situation to your Dad's. In that 9.5-11 gallon tank range you're at the gas station once or twice a day anyway. I think we're learning that there is a distinction with the 14+ gallon tanks. More mileage per tank means you're not thinking about it as much. Some of us don't want to think about it. The modern world has spoiled us. A Model A guy told me, "These old cars require you to "drive" them." They involve work, more attention. I 100% respect and understand the effort and equipment to reduce the worry and improve safety. So, it's not a hesitancy out of ignoring any of that. That said, most times we don't get a view of the iconic hot rods' trunks. This tank is from the George Seiner's 32 Ford Coupe ("The Flamer"). It's around 10 gallons. My coupe will be about the same. I'm learning, at 10 gallons, if you're not wise, you're walking whether there's a gauge or not. On longer runs I'll likely have to sneak in a small gas can for insurance, regardless.
Yes, all of 'em. The Model A has the '52 DeSoto gauge cluster, stock DeSoto gauge with a new sending unit in the correct OHM reading. However, it reads backwards, so in this car, "E" does mean "Enough"! The Diamond T has a 30 gallon tank, and a working gauge, which I just spent an entire day tracing down why it had suddenly quit working. I ended up running a new wire from the gauge to the sender because the one in the harness had no continuity. Bad splice somewhere in the original wiring? Maybe. The DeSoto wagon has new sender in the original, goofy shaped tank which I evidently didn't shape correctly as it reads "Full" when full, then reads "E" with 3/4 of a tank left. I'd try to fix it but I want to replace the tank with a larger one (only holds 15 gallons) and eliminate or drastically reduce the spare tire well in the floor. A can of "Fix-A-Flat" is what many new cars have, I've never had a flat in a hot rod or custom in 49 years. I'll just adjust the arm in a new sender to work in whatever tank I end up with. Not having a gas gauge is pretty inconvenient, making a working one is so simple there's no reason not to.
Ha!, 14 plus gallon tanks. I’m really hating a 16 gallon tank. But!, it does cover mandated requirement for a vehicle to travel between fill up’s. Meaning you can get to the next furthest station with out getting into trouble.
In my roadster and my PU I installed the tube type sender. They are a little more $ but so far, they work very well.
After clogging up several filters Dad decided the stock Model A tank wasnt going to cut it. Not wanting to make it over complicated he put a stainless dune buggy tank in the "rumble trunk". A paintstick serves as a "guage" along w a gas can and a couple gallons on deck just in case. Its a Hot Rod, I dont mind it as is. Just one of those subtle nuances that all my old cars seem to have.
Ha, the one with the 10 gallon tank and no gauge is the one I ran out twice in, the one with the biggest 15 gallon tank only get 3.5 mpg so it's a fill up any time you use that thirsty prick lol I just put the same 15 gallon in the Henry J from the original 11 gallon I had built for it, I'm sure it'll be more thirsty with the bigger mill.
The thing I have noticed over time is that people often will not accept attempts to save them from themselves but must learn from personal experience "the hard way". Having a small gas tank and a thirsty engine should be easily recognizable as a "problem waiting to happen". Not having a guage to keep you advised easily is an extension of that problem. People can justify anything in their minds and their reasons for that justification..........but in the the end, when your wife is sitting there with her arms crossed and that "look" on her face........and saying "what are we going to do now".........thats when reality really sets in.
It surprises me that we need to "modernify" some old, raw hot rod and that is now the popular belief. I'd rather have a 10 gallon Moon tank for the purity of it all. Over the years riding several old motorcycles with no gauges. My Brit bike was in the 3 gallon range and I drove that thing all over. I didn't get mental or worry. I handled it. Let me ask you this: With a car like mine, either built to a standard, NHRA rule book, or a restoring a survivor... do you swap out the tank and add a fuel gauge or do you do what matches the era/vehicle and keep it authentic? If I run out of gas and learn about my car, so be it. Won't be the last time I try and learn and my wife is cool, she's never shaken her head, crossed her arms or scorned me. We've been on all sorts of adventures on a couple continents and it always seemed to work out. That's likely one of reasons she loves me. I'm glad to have posted this thread. It game me all sorts of perspectives to measure and it made me consider my commitment to the build. I appreciate your comment, as well. It made me think about things outside of the Coupe.
Good excuse to bust out submarine race’s. But you probably didn’t run out of gas by the lake so that’ll be another minus in her book.
Yep. I don't like having gauges that don't work. Rewound the old 6 volt coils for 9V and run a small regulator I built on the back to trim the battery voltage down to that so they're always accurate, even if the engine isn't running. Difficulty rating, 3 out of 5 simply because gauges can be fiddly persnickety things, but the effort was 110% worth putting in. Phil
When you say "with a car like mine" I assume you are referring to the car in your Avataur which looks like a 30 Ford ???? I'm not aware of any NHRA rule that doesn't allow a fuel guage, and unless its a full on race car, the weight savings would be negligible in a street/race vehicle. As for "matches the era".....what era did not have cars with fuel guages ? I don't know about what they did on the very earliest automobiles, but even the Model A came with a fuel guage on the dashboard. Isn't that what we all do in some form or fashion ? Often we conceal certain upgrades or try to make them less obvious to retain the nostalgic attraction, but the end result is always the incorporation of some more modern things into the finished product unless its a restoration and not a hot rod. Fuel guages have been around for longer than any of us on this site, so its not modernization to have one. Lots of the old fuel guages quit working and people would use sticks rather than fix them. Then a lot of us liked to tell our girlfriends that we had run out of gas in some out of the way place and a working guage would refute that. Facing facts, a lot of us young guys didn't know how to fix a non-working guage or have the money to replace one. We got by.........but sometimes we ran out of gas too.
While this thread isn't about my car because I'm generally interested in what hot rodders do/think, in reference to our part of the conversation, yes my car is a 1930 Model A Coupe, which is a fairly strict street/strip car that I've built pretty much along the early-mid 60s NHRA rules as a guide. It's not about a rule. It's not about weight. It's about building a double-duty car akin to the cars that built to those same rules. A lot of the stock tanks were removed in favor of aftermarket tanks. The topical question wasn't so much to measure that but to see what others had or were doing and how they dealt with it. Well, there are a lot of cars without them and a lot more that came with other stuff that hot rods no longer have. Removing "stuff" is like step one to hot rodding. The original fuel tank is one of those things, especially on early cars. I'm really into the late 50s to mid 60s (especially the 1960s) hot rods. The in-your-face hot rods with a custom flair. The double-duty cars that ran the strip. I only have the cowl-top. There's not much stock Model A left. If the tank remained, I'd have the gauge. If I had a stock banger, I'd have other stuff that's in that pic, too. We do, I'm not denying that. I don't want to. I'm trying to limit it as much as possible. I enjoy the simplicity and concealing modern parts isn't my thing. That's the crux of my own decision because in practicing restraint the car really has a presence. "Modernization" in that putting a fuel gauge in a subset of cars that didn't have them. Specifically, in my case, putting a sending unit in and wiring in a gauge for a 10-gallon Moon tank. I haven't seen an Eelco, Moon, or other replacement tank like a T or other tank that had a provision welded on for a gauge in any of the tanks I've seen from back then. Those guys just wanted to do whatever they could to go racing. I like that. I actually like the gas cap fuel gauge idea. It's not likely to keep me from going to a fuel station any less... with 10 gallons it is what it is.
It's far better to have a working gauge but my 51 Merc didn't have a working gauge and I drove it on a lot of road trips, My 48 never has had a working gauge since 1973. I won't say that I didn't run out of gas but the aluminum tank behind the rear axle holds 20 gallons and when the 250 was in good shape was good for about 400 miles. Experience says that the guys (including myself) who get in trouble without a gas gauge are those who only put a few bucks worth in at a time rather than filling it every time. Very simply if you fill the tank every time and know how many miles you can go on a tank and give yourself a reasonable cushion when you stop and refill life is pretty good. Even without a working odometer it isn't hard to figure out where you need to stop for gas on road trips. The I get X miles per tank, This town is Y miles down the road leaving me z miles cushion. If you are good at it you can guess real close to how many gallons it will take at a stop. It's getting a working gas guage this time because I am getting too old to want to hitch hike with a gas jug in my hand.
I had texted this photo from the gas station to Dooley here on the HAMB, I cut it really close that day. lol
The Jalopy Journal
