The gas Gauge doesn't work on 56 T-Bird

[58Yeoman]

The gas gauge showed MT on my 58 Chevy. I pulled the sending unit and found that the brass float had cracked in three places. Replaced it with another float, and less than 6 months, the gauge was reading MT again. I pulled it again and found that that float had also exploded. What goes on here? I found a hybrid float on ebay and it won't explode. Someone told me that the wire holder for the float was too tight on it, causing the floats to crack.

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[dmsfrr]

Originally Posted by Test Osterone

... Gauge has been intermittent and sluggish to show full after filling the tank. Now it shows empty till a right turn is made then it will read at 1/2.
Going to look at the connections tomorrow, check for voltage , and while there, check the sender as well.
I have the “Fix Your Ford” manual for ‘57 and will take a look at the wiring diagram too.
PS: I’ll post what is found.

Originally Posted by 58Yeoman

... I pulled the sending unit and found that the brass float had cracked in three places. Replaced it with another float, and less than 6 months, the gauge was reading MT again. I pulled it again and found that that float had also exploded. .....

Test, since the gauge reads differently after turning a corner... in addition to the float possibly being bad also check that the fuel tank Sending unit is electrically grounded.
'55/'57 T-bird fuel tanks are mounted to the car with rubber and fiber pads between the body & tank support straps. I'm not sure what Ford expected the Ground connection to be for the tank & Sender, maybe the steel fuel line??? An extra Ground wire from the Sender to the car body won't hurt.
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[Test Osterone]

Thanks again, dmsfrr.

Had good power to the sender and was pulsing as it should. Continuity checked out as well. Tank was well grounded. However, when attempting to measure resistance, could not get anything but full scale reading on the V/O meter so decided to remove sender.

Basically, this unit was falling apart in the tank. The sender has seen some service in it’s past life as the case halves were somewhat soldered together, that is to say, an attempt was made to solder them together. Didn’t work very well.

My fix was to clean everything, adjust the wiper contact and simply wire the two halves securely together.

Cut notches into the body of the sender to bed the wire when wrapping the halves together. Those halves are not going anyplace.

Thanks again for your help.

Test.