Thread: '52 Chevy 3100 pickup w/splits

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One thing i'll share - do you notice how i am not going into supporting the fuel tank? - when fullay assembled i tested the tanks and sending unit thoroughly, double tested it until i was without doubt it was perfect. I installed it, restested the sending unit with the new gage...it worked perfect. We made the fuel lines etc and put the bed back on it.
The pic shows the tabs i welded to the tank that i bent over the fuel line and another for the sending unit line. very tidy, right? I run the line or wire thru the middle and bend each side over to hold it.
Do you know welding to the tank will burn out a sending unit?
Yup!
I welded the tabs after testing and never gave it a second thought, i had to take the whole bed back off and replace the sending unit, it was fried and curled up.
I'm sharing this so's you guys will know better than to weld on a tank with the sending unit in it.

Originally Posted by ojh

Do you know welding to the tank will burn out a sending unit?
Yup!
I welded the tabs after testing and never gave it a second thought, i had to take the whole bed back off and replace the sending unit, it was fried and curled up.
I'm sharing this so's you guys will know better than to weld on a tank with the sending unit in it.

Hindsight, but if you would have pulled your negative battery cable and grounded your welder direct to the tank as close to the weld as possible I think you'd of been OK welding those tabs. It's even more important on the computer controlled cars, where you can blow a computer or melt lots of stuff in a heartbeat if you weld on the vehicle without unhooking electrically. I think most of the shops, like muffler shops welding exhaust parts on the car, now use a surge protector across the battery terminals so they don't lose all of the electronic pre-sets.

Like you said, this is for the guy who may need to weld on a tank, or other component on a finished car.