I've read about your wiring problem and I am having similar trouble. Here's what's going on: I own a bone stock 49 chevy 3100 with 6 volt system and want to keep that way. The fuel gauge used to flutter back & forth but you could see where you were at with fuel. The truck has an 8 volt tractor battery and will not start with a 6 volt battery and I don't know why. Also, when I refaced the guages and reinstalled them the fuel gauge wire to ignition burned up and I mean burned up! I'm rewiring the truck but am afraid to use the 8 volt battery for fear of the same thing happening. I have bought a resistor for the fuel gauge, but I need to know where the short is coming from. Before I started the rewire,I rigged a jumper to the fuel gauge (I think to the empty side) and grounded it to the dash. The whole cluster was out of the dash when I did this and it seemed to solve the problem, but when I reinstalled the gauge cluster the fuel wires burned again. What am I doing wrong? Thank you in advance for any help and apologize if I monopolized the post. Frank