Thread: Interesting discovery (Yikes!!!)

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The roadster pickup has recovered from its massive gasoline bath, so after work today I went out for a little cruise around town. Everything is working good, but no gas gauge!! Now, I have to tell you, the gas gauge has never worked all that well, since about 3 months after I got the car on the road, 4 years ago. Its an Autometer sending unit and gauge, but with a round tank, the readings are eratic at best. However, even eratic is better than nothing. I did a little investigation and discovered that the only thing grounding the tank was the copper gas line! (aluminum gas tank anchored to oak truck bed.) When I cut the gas line to put the solenoid shut-off valve in it, I reconnected it to the solenoid valve with a neoprene gas line. This is not a good thing!!! I connected a booster cable to one of the tank brackets and to a good ground, and the gas gauge came back to life. Tomorrow I will wire up a proper #10 ga. ground wire to the tank.

Just a suggestion, you dont need a 10 ga wire for ground. The gas gauge is a voltmeter and a 16 ga wire is plenty big for the current.

mike in tucson

for a gas tank I would go with the bigger wire to get rid of static elect during refueling to prevent explosions---especially when free falling the stream of gas

I will go with #10 ga. because its big enough, and thats what I have.

Yeah, even in boats, which have strict rules dictated by the Coast Guard, a 16 gauge or at most a 14 gauge is fine. And the risk from explosion in a boat is many times greater than a car. But if you feel better with 10 there is no reason not to use it.

Don

Huh....I was under the impression that you had built this truck yourself. Not from anything you had said, I guess I just "ASSumed" you did. Guess its time to give it a good going thru to see if there were any other "short" cuts!...

Talk about overkill.

I don't care who built the truck, just glad your ok!

Brian, keep reporting this stuff because it is useful to me. It is common for consumers to sue and/or not buy some brand of automobile for some construction flaw (Pinto gas tank worries for instance) but when you construct the whole car yourself there are so very many things to check it is difficult to check everything. I am thinking of my zero dish steering wheel with no protection at all for my chest excep a lap belt so maybe I need a shoulder belt too, etc.

Don Shillady
Retired Scientist/teen rodder

Brian, you bring up a good subject here. Proper grounding is extremely important for an electrical system to function properly but to often overlooked is the grounding or bonding of the fuel tank to disipate static electricity. Many people accept the installation of the tank through steel hardware and attachments alone will be sufficient, in many cases it may not be especially if the structure has been painted or powder coated. I have a SS tank installed on powder coated frame rails, the gauge circuit is grounded from the sender to the frame rail but I am going to take another look at my tank installation and look at installing a bonding strap. Being in aircraft maintenance, I can tell you that bonding of everything having to do with the fuel tank and fuel delivery system is imperative. Thanks for bringing this up.
....Doug.

For all of you too new to remember---Yes, I did build it myself---and the build was fully documented here on clubhotrod 4 years ago. Very few of you new guys will appreciate what a complete build it was. And yes, even I am not infallible. I missed putting a ground strap on that tank right from day one, and if you ever completely build a car from the ground up, as I did, you will know how easy it is to miss one thing out of the 10,000 things involved in building a car completely.---Brian

Note to self. Check to see if gas tank is grounded. Those wooden body supports may not be enough. . .

Brian - at least you found it before the fire.