VCCA Home Forums TECHNICAL - 1945 AND NEWER 1949-1954 Fuel gauge bugs: I'm ready to put a bullet in it.

OK . I give up. It's either ask for opinions or I put a bullet in it. I have a '53 truck. Gauges were out of dash but included when I got the vehicle. It was a started but not finished restoration. Gauges were in boxes and looked new with some age. Installed gauges and now doing final wiring. (New?) fuel gauge...bought and installed NEW sending unit. All new wiring but I'm getting a bad reading on the gauge...just above empty when I KNOW it's got at least 1/4 full tank. I've run all the traps....sending unit in/out cannot manipulate the gauge by moving the float lever. POSITIVE everything is grounded. Gauge in the cluster...gauge out of the cluster....gauge OUT OF THE TRUCK and bench tested...same results. Meter tested the sending unit. It's good. NOW....I buy a NEW gauge...repeat all the above and STILL GET THE SAME results. One thing is bothering me: When the power is on to the gauge, BOTH posts become charged...which means I'm sending live power back thru the sending unit into the tank....there's something fundamentally wrong about that picture. I get the same results regardless of the gauge I use; the original or the new.

THIS AINT THAT DIFFICULT but I'll be damned if I can figure out why nothing's working. I find it highly unlikely I have two bad gauges giving me the same results when I KNOW one of them is new. But yeah, I'm ready to put a bullet in it.

I'll be interested to read about this situation. The gauge in our 54 didn't work. I replaced the sending unit. Now it works backwards. When it is full it reads epmty. After I driev about 150 miles is shows full.

Help both of us solve our problem.

My instincts tell me that something is grounded that shouldn't be...maybe between the back of the gauge and the front face of the cluster plate. I've got to stay on this until resolved. I'll post what I find.

Your "working backwards" issue sounds to me like a case of the vehicle being positive ground and the gauge wired as if it's negative ground. This will also make a battery gauge read backward.

Good luck with it.

BackRoads:

Doesn't sound like a problem to me. Keep it up and pretty soon you will have to drain fuel out of tank. Pretty dang soon you will never have to buy gas again!!

Jim.

Have similar problem with my 54 sedan. converted to 12v and installed resistors and re-wired the whole car. Gage reads full until it gets down to 1 gallon and then drops to empty. have replaced sending unit and tested by grounding on bumper and have worked the float. The units have not worked properly. Checked hte oms and they are correct. Conclusion the aftermarket sending units are bad. I am ordering my 3rd one and hopefully one will work properly