Anyone familiar with 49 Lincoln dash stuff?

I'm looking to get the original gauge cluster working again on my 49 Lincoln. Fuel, temp, alt and oil are all on one gauge. Power comes in and each gauge is controlled by ground from each respective gauge. It's been converted to 12 volt years ago by my grandpa and he just cut all the existing wires, left them still attached to the gauges but cut them out from the car so to say. He put in mechanical oil and temp gauges and a 12 volt alt gauge but didn't do anything abou the fuel gauge.

I understand that I'll need to install resistors inline if i use the original fuel sender and gauge but how do I utilize the mechanical gauge stuff on the original gauge? It has a SBC 400 in it and the harness has all been converted. Would it be be easier to just get a set of new gauges? Because I can't obviously install the copper oil line and the metal temp line into the old school 6 volt gauge. If I get new gauges will I need an aftermarket 12 volt fuel sender? I assume I would...

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Search "Automobile Instrument Repair, or "Automobile Gauge Repair" on your search engine.. I found a whole bunch, but I can't seem to get the URLs to attach correctly. If this post turns out wierd, that's why.

Basically, though, a resistor is inserted in the hot wire to drop the voltage from twelve to six volts at the gauge. For the fuel gauge, you can either get a new sending unit, most likely a universal type and replace the one in the tank, or send the one you have along with the gauges to be rebuilt to whatever specs you want. Whoever you get to do the work, ask them what they recommend.

There are several companies that will set older gauges up with new innards, but Classic seem to be one of the better - and their after market gauge sets are among the best. If you just decide the heck with it, and install new gauges, eGauges has many brands including the standard Classic. To mount a later fuel sending unit in your old Lincoln tank, there are adapters (Tanks, Inc) or you can make up one of your own.


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Setting gauges up with resistor is usually a band aid and seldom works as well as you would hope