Josiah, after looking at it more closely, I can see you are absolutely correct. The sender itself is flared. The seat of the adapter in the head looks pretty rough, so I will have to clean it up - maybe use a large drill bit to face it. All the weird sqare "nut" does is hold it in. When installing it, do you put any sort of sealant on it? The bulb looks fairly fragile - how much torque would you recommend?
Thanks for your help,
Gord