Hi,
I have a 53 Cranbrook i bought recently, the fuel guage always reads full except just before it goes empty.[dont ask how i know!!] The guage reads empty when the car is off and past full when the car is running. The wire in the trunk is connected to the disc that is above the float. When i remove the wire the guage reads empty and when connected it reads full.
Thanks, Jay
In older year's sevice manuals, there is a section under electrical that describes how to trouble shoot the fuel gauge. I would think that your gauge would be similar, but don't know for sure
Sounds like a bad sending unit to me.
Defenately a sender fault. That is, if you are sure to see that when the wire is attatched to the sender that it does not ground out. The sender has a variable resistor made by winding wire around a cone shaped form. As the float rises and falls there is a wipe/contact that moves with the floats' arm and makes contact in different locations to change the resistance.This change in resistance allows the needle to change its location on the gauge indicating the level of fuel. On my '53 the cone came loose and my gauge read empty. If I moved the arm it made contact at times and the gauge would read but was in no way near accurate. Sounds like yours has either broken the wire, worn out the wire or contact or the cone has done as mine did and only reads when the contact comes in contact with what is left of the cone/resistor.
I soldered the cone back on, on my 54 ply, works fine.
I very carefully rotated my coil / cone for a few degrees: for the next 55 Years the float contact will consume another sector of the coil wires . Well, shows a bit more gas level than before... not bad with todays?gas prices...
The service manual 1946 - 1953 shows 2 types of gauges : the older thermostatic, the newer electro magnetic. See pages 106 + 107..
I can?t put three pages becaus of the file sizes when scanned.If You don?t have a manual, I can mail it to You. Only today because I?m leaving .
I will be at Milan / Italy on my youth?s roots until 3.May next week. Or I mail You than.
Greetings! Go
Check the ground to the sending unit and/or fuel tank. It things are a bit rusty it will give faulty readings.
I did run a ground wire from the gauge to the sending unit to get good readings.