if i get a sender and tank as a complete unit, figure a way to mount it into a car and hook all it up to a fuel guage, will the guage read (more or less) true, or do i need to get a specificly matched guage and sender combination????

eg if i used for example a spitfire or chevette tank & sender unit, and the ford fuel guage from my sierra cluster will it all work, or am i barking up the wrong tree, in a diffrent forrest, on another continent???

The sender unit from a spitfire tank is an old smiths one. I doubt it will be compatible with a modern guage. I bought my gauges and sender unit from Greengauges. Although the sender unit as a whole was a vertical mount, the actual sender box containing the electrical gubbins, is exactly the same as the smiths unit so I was able to make up a new unit to fit the Spitfire tank.

they need to match and are many different types....


atb

steve

Oops...missed out the obvious!! Sorry, should have said that the Greengauges sender matched the Greengauges fuel gauge.

If you phone around the various gauge manufacturers, they'll be able to tell you if they can match one of their gauges to your sender.

If you have the guage and sender and you want to see if it works OK you could wire them up temporarily. Then move the float about.

Instruments of old had voltage stabalisers and worked off a nominal 5 or 10 volts. If the guage you have is set up for this type of system then you will get faulty readings.

This will show itself as bad readings when you test by moving the float up and down.

Simply wire it up on the bench with a spare battery, or wires coming from your existing battery, then move the float about and see if you get the correct reading. I.E. Showing empty when the float is at the bottom, full when at the top and half full when the float is in the middle. If not you have a compatability problem.