got a cheap parts truck!

[pelky350]

Paid 150$ for a parts truck today! Came with a looks sorta custom made rear tank at least 40 gallons but has no guage on it, looks very well built though not sure if im gonna use yet, how would I go about trying to make a float and guage in it using a factory sender somehow? It's also got a coolant filter installed and custom braket for it off the filter head. Are any stock parts off the 93 parts truck a upgrade over my 88 parts? Wiring or anything? It's got a 7.3 with a thrown rod but are the heads worth keeping around maybe? I plan on selling the somewhat recent rebuilt injection pump to make my money back off it.

 

[nostrokes]

Nice score!! If the heads aren't chewed up they would definitely be good to hang onto.

 

[Macrobb]

Paid 150$ for a parts truck today! Came with a looks sorta custom made rear tank at least 40 gallons but has no guage on it, looks very well built though not sure if im gonna use yet, how would I go about trying to make a float and guage in it using a factory sender somehow? It's also got a coolant filter installed and custom braket for it off the filter head. Are any stock parts off the 93 parts truck a upgrade over my 88 parts? Wiring or anything? It's got a 7.3 with a thrown rod but are the heads worth keeping around maybe? I plan on selling the somewhat recent rebuilt injection pump to make my money back off it.

What you need to figure out is the resistance(full and empty) of your factory gauge/sender. You can then get a 'universal' sender with the correct resistances.
http://www.ebay.com/bhp/universal-fuel-sending-unit

One way to do this would be to measure the resistance(with a multimeter) of a spare sender at "empty" and "full" and see where it's at. Or, grab a resistor assortment and plug the gauge sender wires into a resistor instead, and see what the gauge reads. Try with different resistances until you figure out what "empty" and "full" should be, then report those numbers here.

I know that there are supposed to be specs for these sender resistances depending on year, but I don't really know them, and would want to test and verify even if I knew them.

 

[genscripter]

, how would I go about trying to make a float and guage in it using a factory sender somehow?

What's wrong with the factory guage? If your guage is not reading right, the sender is likely bad, or you have bad ground . I wrote about this in my blog about replacing the sender in the IDI van:


http://www.nickpisca.com/diesel/fue...rd-van-fuel-tank-sender-replacement-tutorial/

The van has a similar resistance range as the truck gasser fuel system. The IDI truck uses a different range range. From the article:

"Ford designed the IDI trucks and IDI vans to have different resistances (in ohms). Trucks had “magnetic” gauges where a full tank transmitted 160 ohms and empty tank transmitted 15 ohms."

 

[Macrobb]

What's wrong with the factory guage? If your guage is not reading right, the sender is likely bad, or you have bad ground . I wrote about this in my blog about replacing the sender in the IDI van:

Because the 'custom' tank has no sender?

 

[Jason1377]

Awesome score

 

[pelky350]

Custom tank has no sender, it's literally a box with two fuel lines, a breather and a filler neck attachment point. It looks well made but for some reason they decided not to put a float and sender in it or spot to put one. But to answer the other question about my gauges is no neither front or rear tank works both read full with anythjng more than a few gallons inthem. When low the needle bounces everywhere and then eventually reads like 1/8th tank and down. I also think I have slight air intrusion somewhere before my lift pump. Fuel selector valve is gonna be changed as well because I heard that can make the fuel gauges not work. Tanks I'm changing due to my rear tank leaking and my front tank has opoxy pasted 1 inch thick across the top of it because I'm assuming it was leaking for the past owner of the vehicle.

 

[IDIBRONCO]

Just a suggestion. Why don't you install the custom rear tank and always run off of your front tank. You could install a universal electric fuel pump with a toggle switch for power. When your front tank gets low, just pump fuel from the rear into the front. This way, you wouldn't have to worry about the selector valve or a gauge on the rear tank. This is how I'm going to do it when I replace my rear tank. I've already bypassed the selector valve when it stuck and sent the return to my leaking rear tank (yes I accidentally hit it by mistake while reaching for the radio while driving down the road). 1 3/4 tanks of fuel during a 188 mile round trip was kind of expensive!

 

[genscripter]

Because the 'custom' tank has no sender?

ahhh. My bad.

If you have a custom tank, I recommend using Centroid fuel senders. They don't have moving parts like floats and whatnot that eventually fail.

Centroid units are basically just two concentric alum tubes that span the top to bottom of the tank. As the fuel level increases, the capacitance of the fluid transmitted between the two concentric tubes increases. The fuel sender converts that signal to something the gauge can read.

I use them on all my custom tanks. And if you don't have a hole to mount the sender, they are easy to install with a simple hole saw. And since they are just a simple tube, it makes it easy just in case your custom tank has an extensive baffle.

 

[pelky350]

Just a suggestion. Why don't you install the custom rear tank and always run off of your front tank. You could install a universal electric fuel pump with a toggle switch for power. When your front tank gets low, just pump fuel from the rear into the front. This way, you wouldn't have to worry about the selector valve or a gauge on the rear tank. This is how I'm going to do it when I replace my rear tank. I've already bypassed the selector valve when it stuck and sent the return to my leaking rear tank (yes I accidentally hit it by mistake while reaching for the radio while driving down the road). 1 3/4 tanks of fuel during a 188 mile round trip was kind of expensive!

That's not a bad idea, that tank I got looks like I could fill my front tank 2 times off it.

 

[nelstomlinson]

ahhh. My bad.

If you have a custom tank, I recommend using Centroid fuel senders. They don't have moving parts like floats and whatnot that eventually fail.

Link?

 

[genscripter]

Link?

http://centroidproducts.com/

 

[typ4]

Keeep the heads. cam, pretty much everything you have room for

 

[pelky350]

Keeep the heads. cam, pretty much everything you have room for

Okay, so the wiring harness looks a little different on this truck vs mine 88 vs 93. But mine harness is a little messed up any chance this stuff can go on my truck?

 

[Thewespaul]

Depends on what parts, I’d say half is the same but they changed a good bit with the obs harnesses