I recently installed a new gas tank in my 1955 TBird. The tank went in without a hassle.  I ordered a new fuel gauge sending unit from Macs and they sent me a universal sender from Dennis Carpenter.  I followed the instructions and can't get the fuel gauge to read correctly.  The arm with the float on it hangs up.  I took it out and the pressure required to move the float up and down is substantial.  I am under the impression that the float arm should fall with gravity alone?  My car is a 55 that has been converted to 12 volts. This unit is suppose to work with either 6 or 12 volt systems.  Anyone else have this problem?

The arm is supposed to drop freely with gravity. Can you see where it's hanging up? 

What was wrong with the Original? You are always better to use the Ford Sender. I don't hear much good about the replacements. There's a Company that can repair the Original if its not working properly. The Carpenter Ones and most others are made U know where.

  

It won't read correctly if it doesn't hang up. The reproduction units work on resistance, where the originals work on bi-metallic strips and points. I have a reproduction on my '55 Victoria. From my experience you can only get them read accurately on one part of the scale. I chose for it to tell me when the tank is about empty. 

I spent some time looking at the replacement sender and it looks like it has an open rheostat with a little board and a pointer that wipes across it.  The friction of the pointer on the board is such that it won't fall under the weight of the float.  The original sender works completely different, but it's broken.  I'm going to mark this part up as junk and try to find an original unit.  Don't buy one of these.

Some of the Aftermarket Ones don't even have the right Resistance Values. Nothing beats OEM. I assume You have a resistor or step down device to run your Gauges on 12 Volts?

  

I followed the instructions and can't get the fuel gauge to read correctly.

The first thing to be done (IMO) is to call them and describe the problem. If they will foot the bill for return, send it back.

They will continue to sell crap until all let them know it's crap. If you just simply can it, they will keep pushing it.

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If you want to try and source a OEM one, all cars and thunderbirds included used the same sending unit, the 12V one for 1956 is #B6A-927-A.  For 1955 with a 6V sender if you are using a 6V sender still its #B5A-9275-A.

I checked ebay for both numbers it only shows the new ones not NOS units.


1956 Ford Fairlane Town Sedan - 292 Y8 - Ford-O-Matic - 155,000 mi

B5A-9275-B which is for Wagon can also be used by switching float Arm from Original Unit. Even harder to find than the proper "A" Unit though.

  

Yep.  That's why I don't know what he did, I know he has a 55 but if hes not running a voltage reducer to his gauge cluster after converting to 12 volts then he might be running a 56 gauge set which means he can run the 56 12 volt sender.  If hes running the voltage reducer on his cluster then he really should get the 55 6 volt sender.


1956 Ford Fairlane Town Sedan - 292 Y8 - Ford-O-Matic - 155,000 mi