The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area The Electrical Bay Fuel gauge repair 1955 1st

My fuel gauge has what I believe is melted insulation on one of the electromagnets. The burned insulation is on the choke or limiting coil. The operating coil on the other hand looks to be O.K. and shows continuity where it should and no continuity where it shouldn't.

I am considering rewinding the limiting coil. Has anyone done this successfully? What size wire? If I measure the length of the wire (looks to be about 80 feet) and wind on the same length of wire will this work?

It seems like for the $59.00 price of a new one I can at least try to repair the one I have.

I gave it a pretty good try and gave up. I found a used gauge for parts. https://www.stovebolt.com/ubbthread...;Main=52840&Number=382297#Post382297

Thanks Neil, that's exactly what I wanted to know. And thanks also for the reality check. May end up thinking that new one is worth every penny.

Alright, so far none of you have scared me off of this project. Not yet anyway. In fact the research has been a lot of fun.

Found a site called Steward MacDonald where I can buy pickup winding wire to "hotrod my pickup". Don't think they have a Chevy in mind though. They would also be happy to sell me a winder for $384.00.

http://www.stewmac.com/

And as much fun as the guitar pickup winding sounds, I am instead getting some 40 gauge from OEM wire.

http://www.oemwire.com/hmagwireq.htm

So finally here is my latest question. On the old magnet it appears the wire is soldered to the core where it begins. Does this make sense from the perspective of the physics of electromagnets?

I am going to declare a qualified success on this one. The gauge checks out O.K. on the tests I can perform without a new sending unit (the old one was too far gone to even consider a rewind) and I won't have the new unit until after a local swap meet in Oct. The gauge shows empty with current through the choke coil only and full with current through both magnets.

To rewind the choke coil, I measured out 70 feet of 40 Gauge wire on the ground in my back yard after covering the ground with canvas drop cloths to protect the insulation on the wire. I then soldered the wire to the core of the magnet spool and chucked it into a cordless drill mounted in a very simple plywood frame. I triggered the drill with one hand and let the wire slip through the fingers of my other hand. It wound up neat as a pin.

Thanks so much Neil and Denny for the help and advice on this little project. It turned out to be pretty doable and best of all I get to keep the original gauge.