Thread: How to hook-up gas gauge??

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Another.

And another..........

P.S. Bob, I think I hijacked my thread back......LOL!!!!!!!!!

Youther,

Thanks very much for the pictures, particularly the tanks and the running board brackets. I don't think those tanks would last long in my driveway so I am now agreeing with Bob regarding a tank behind the front seat of the roadster. You also showed the muffler and oil filter positions. Since I don't have a body yet it is hard for me to check future clearance problems so your pictures are useful to me. Today I finally got the 1" notch in the crossmember boxed in and the power steering bracket welded in. I talked to the guy (Curt) at Brookville about the frame and if I had told them I wanted a power brake they would have milled out the 1" notch and boxed it in for me but hindsight is 20/20 so I had to put in the notch with a Dremel tool. Actually it doesn't look too bad with paint on it and now I can begin installation of the stainless brake lines. I think your pictures have convinced me to not use saddle tanks with my bumpy driveway (about 400 feet long) and with a roadster I can put the tank behind the seat while in your neat sedan you have less flexibility, although on another thread Daver has shown an installation of a '32-style tank in the rear of his sedan. Anyway I hope your switch installation works OK, we have certainly gone round and round on this thread, but it's all information for Model-A rebuilds so that's OK with me!

P.S. on the last picture of the first page you may have lost a bolt from the muffler bracket, so maybe something good came from all this photography?

Don Shillady
Retired Scientist/teen rodder

"P.S. on the last picture of the first page you may have lost a bolt from the muffler bracket, so maybe something good came from all this photography?"

Good eye Don!! I actually noticed that also and plan to fix it in the next day or so.

I'm glad these helped you. Anytime you have any other questions or want to see some pics of something else, just let me know.

It looks to me like those tanks are not pulled up as far as they could go. Take a look at your first photo. The notch in the tank looks to be an inch or more below the frame. Mine pulled up flush. Maybe there's some fabrication, braces or brackets above the tank keeping it from snugging up - or maybe the bands just aren't pulled tight. If you get underneath and push up, do they move?

For washers, just use a grade 5 or 8 washer sized to the bolt. The washer needs to be large enough that the rod eye couldn't be pulled over it if the ball fails. That doesn't happen often, but it does happen. It's also one of the NSRA safety check items. I'm guessing those are 1/2" inch bolts, so a 1/2" washer should work.

What goes for Heim ends goes for urethane-bushed rod ends (like those used on 4-bars) also. If the bolt head is smaller than the rod end, and the urethane fails, the whole thing could pop off.

I just want to thank Youther, Henry Rifle and Bob again. This is a really useful thread to me and I reviewed it while reconsidering saddle tanks for my '29 'glass roadster. It looks to me that the tanks in Youther's sedan are really supported by the running board brackets and that the indentations in the tanks let them drop so low. Seeing this and rereading Bob's comments reminds me that going over a hump in my driveway could well crush one or both saddle tanks hanging that low. In addition, Henry Rifle has some other threads telling that with the pickup in the front of the tank gas starvation occurs upon hard acceleration with half-filled tanks! Little stuff like that is what makes this Forum so valuable! BUT (!) the most important thing on Youther's very clear pictures is that he has offset turbo-type mufflers and they seem to fit OK, so I should be able to use these cheaper mufflers and get good flow and maybe just a mellow tone? Again, as Henry noted I guessed right in putting washers on the outside of the four bar bolts and in addition I had the bolts drilled on the inside through the hex bolts for cotter pins. Actually I could not get on to the Forum this afternoon in anything but the "wait state" so I reread old threads that I have bookmarked (many) related to Model-A construction. In particular the Rat Rod thread is now over 25 pages and will not load unless I wait a very long time. Maybe such long threads should be restarted so the load time is less? Maybe Sunday afternoon is just a busy time on the Internet? Anyway I was unable to look at anything other than old bookmarked threads and found these neat pictures from Youther. I guess I need to get back to Rock Valley Antique Auto Parts in Stillman Valley Ill. since they offer a behind-the-seat stainless steel tank holding about 16-17 gallons at about $575 which is only about $100 more than the polypropylene saddle tanks. That may just about kill the idea of a rumble seat, but I may get a rumble seat anyway suitable for grandkids in a parade while they are still small. Is there anyone out there with a behind-the-seat tank AND a rumble seat? Looking at a local '29 Sport Coupe with a rumble seat shows very little space behind the front seat where the rumble passenger foot space should be. Maybe I can have the tank there if the rumble is only available for one adult sitting slightly crossways or two small grandkids. The "bottom" line is that Bob is so right, saddle tanks will simply not work with my country lane driveway. Anyhow, thanks for the great pictures from Youther. Believe it or not I am actually about to order my 'glass body before the prices go up, and I have to decide whether to order a trunk or rumble seat. If Youther sees this maybe he could comment on whether he notices gas starvation on hard acceleration?

Don Shillady
Retired Scientist/teen rodder

Don Shillady
Retired Scientist/teen rodder

Don,

There's an article in the new Street Rod Builder about installing saddle tanks. If you fit them up right, they will be higher than the running boards, so you can't crunch the tanks without taking out the boards.

Henry Rifle/Jack,

Thanks for the tip on the saddle tanks. Can you tell me the exact issue of Street Rod Builder in which that article appeared? I can order that issue if I know which one. Another protective idea would be to bolt a steel or aluminum plate to the bottom of the running board brackets and let it act both as a shield and a shelf protruding toward the inner part of the frame on which the tanks can rest. That should be easy to do IF (??) the tanks will allow shoving them up intil they meet the bottom of the aprons. I also wonder what happens to my power brake booster just on the inside of the frame as to whether it will prevent the tank on the driver side from moving up. I think 1/8" steel or 1/4" aluminum sheet/plate should be enough to hold and protect the tanks but I really would like to see the pictures before I buy the tanks and then find they won't fit. I ordered a two year subscription to Street Rod Builder since my local magazine stand seems not to carry it any more and guess what, I get a free T-shirt!

Don Shillady
Retired Scientist/teen rodder

I thought about starting a new thread on "saddle tanks" but Youther has already provided some good pictures and Henry Rifle recently sent me a reference to an article in the June issue of Street Rod Builder on installation. I have ordered the set of tanks from TANKS via Brookville thinking that Brookville would have checked out which setup is acceptable. However I saw a neat '30 Model A coupe in Street Rod Builder in Volume 4, March 2003, page 51 (a special issue on Model A rods) which had saddle tanks with two REAR filler pipes instead of the holes in the running board aprons. Some folks have told me that with the fillers in the side aprons I will have to fill up twice and turn around in a gas station unless there is a very long hose on the gas pump. I really like the idea of having symmetric filling pipes in the rear so both sides can be filled easily. Has anyone here adapted the polyethylene tanks so as to move the fill pipes to the rear OR even merged a Y-pipe to two tanks so that there is only one rear filler. If I don't get any answers on this I will have to look into whether epoxy will seal polyethylene (I think it will) so that I could cut out the filler outlet and move it to the rear of the tank and have good luck in patching over the old hole and sealing around the new rear outlet. I would think that with a roughed up surface on the polyethylene, epoxy would seal and if I work on the tanks before any gas is ever in them I should be able to move the inlets????

Don Shillady
Retired Scientist/teen rodder

I thought my 32 was limited in the under-body room department, but the Model A's look even more crowded.

I have a fuel cell in the back seat of my rumble seat 32 roadster and that pretty much takes care of the rumble seat bit.
It doesn't make too much difference since I've never really had an occasion where I wanted to use the rumble and in fact would much rather have a trunk style roadster.
(Three 6', 200# guys will fit in the passenger comp't, but it's crowded enough that the middle guy is the designated shifter.

Fwiw - on my 31 on 32 rails roadster project, I'm leaning very strongly toward building dual under-body tanks that fit in front of the rear axle and inside the frame rails.
Even with the 1 1/4" OD 4-links inside the frame it looks like I'll end up with 6-8 gallons each depending on whether I extend a short nose piece of the tank forward through the crossmembers.
I like the safety aspect of the tanks outside of the body and in a fairly crash-proof location.
There is a little more room available underneath with the Deuce frame.
The 31 may end up with sprint style outside exhaust system or the tanks may end up narrower than planned with the exhaust pipes or muffler in the same area.

If I was doing another inside the body fuel tank, I'd use a steel or aluminum encapsulated fuel cell in place of a regular tank.
Make sure you get one with a top outlet instead of the dragstrip style outlet with it's bottom outlets - many times with small sump.

As for a battery, if you're doing the in the trunk tank bit, you can put the battery under the frame.
A regular battery doesn't use much water since the location is much cooler than under the hood (two fills in three years with a DieHard).
Even so, I installed an Optima and no problems.

Here's a pic of an easy to make under-body battery box.
Constructed of 1/2 x 1" rectangular tubing.
It has a stainless 18 gage sheet metal floor and a piece of 1/2" thick neoprene rubber for the battery to sit on.
A 1/2 x 1" aluminum cross bar with neoprene biscuits for a hold-down and the battery is somewhat vibration proofed.
There are 20 gage aluminum heat shields front and inside because the two chamber Flowmaster is very close to the battery box.

As for ground clearances, my collectors are located at the cowl/door juncture and the lowest is 5 1/2" off the ground.
The car has never dragged across speed bumps or over driveways.

I have a couple of other under body pics if you like.

"merged a Y-pipe to two tanks so that there is only one rear filler. If I don't get any answers on this I will have to look into whether epoxy will seal polyethylene (I think it will) so that I could cut out the filler outlet and move it to the rear of the tank and have good luck in patching over the old hole and sealing around the new rear outlet."

I missed this part, but I plan to make one filter with a Y to both tanks.
The filler will probably be on the left side body sheet metal piece in front of the trunk lid just behind the rear cockpit rail.

As in this pic of a friends 29 roadster.

As far as epoxies working on polyethylene, I don't think so.
poly is a 'waxy' plastic and plastic welding is usually required for repairs on this stuff. (Motor home water tanks etc.)

Forgot the pic....

Instead of dealing with the plastic tanks, why not make your own out of steel?
Even if you had a sheet metal shop bend up the main part and having the welding done it may be cheaper than the problematic plastic tanks.

C9x, Thank you very much! That is great information. About a month after I bought my Sunfire I had a minor collision and ripped the plastic front bumper shield but it was repaired perfectly whether by glue gun or some sort of plastic welding but now I know I can move the outlets on the polyethylene tanks if I can find a plastic welder locally. In addition the picture of the battery box is very helpful and answers another question I had. It turns out the four bar brackets really go pretty far down, on my frame to about 10 1/2" below the top of the frame rails and the four bars will take the first hit on any road bump and the front axle will let me know if there is clearance at about 4 1/2 " for the stuff under the car. Yes it is really tightly packed under there but it will be easier to mount this stuff now before the body is on. The body has been ordered with an expected delivery around July 1 so I need to get the tanks and the exhaust sorted out now. Thanks again.

Don Shillady
Retired Scientist/teen rodder