Heads up on reproduction fuel gauge and sending units

[mdainsd]

Im doing the finishing touches and tidying up on one of the M38s in anticipation of going to a couple of meets next month. Plenty to do with a major disassembly, rebuilding, painting and reassembling.

Got to the instrument panel, it has all original Douglass style connector type gauges with the exception of the fuel gauge. I just could not hunt down a NOS one in time to finish up. So that spot was populated with a "Very correct reproduction" (that being the verbiage used in the ad to sell them). I had bought two, one for the M38 and one for the M37 which too, is just about to roll.

Now to the problems:

Gauge one died within five minutes of starting the jeep. Initially it moved up to the empty mark when the ignition was turned on, but stopped soon after. I pulled it and bench tested it, no actions.

I tried installing the second one, the housing is slightly to big to fit in an unmodified instrument panel, and the locating key is at the top of the body as opposed to the bottom where it is supposed to be.

Both gauges have poorly formed Douglass shells and will not mate properly with the original shells on the wiring harness (all restored).

But with the second gauge in as far as it would go I kept on troubleshooting the issues. Even with half a tank of fuel the gauge only went up to E with the ignition on. I pulled the sending unit and tested it, In spec resistance wise. Took the brass float off and shook it to see if it had leaked. No sounds. finally I placed the sender over a can with gas in it. The float didn't float. Fortunately I had some original bad senders with good brass floats. Once I switched it out all Ok. Interestingly the repop float feels quite heavy compared to the old original.

So just a heads up that, my experience with these "Very Correct reproductions" was less than stellar.
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'52 Dodge M37, '42 GPW, '48 FrankenJeep CJ2A/M38, '50 CJV-35(U), '51 M38, '42 WC-57 Command Car, '44 WC-51 Weapons , (2) M1941 Sperry 60" Anti-Aircraft Searchlights, John Deere M-gator, '44 White M3A1 Scout Car