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Posted by Sherman in Idaho [72.47.9.37] on Monday, October 22, 2012 at 20:58:47 :
In Reply to: Re: Fuel Gauge Question posted by gmharris [71.105.35.169] on Monday, October 22, 2012 at 18:03:51 :
It could be repaired if you wanted to put enough effort into it, but it would surely be easier to find a good used gauge. Even if you had to swap the bimetallic resistance gizmo out of a busted gauge and put it in your good housing, that would be easier than rewinding it. Usually these sorts of things (resistance heaters wrapped around metal) have some sort of insulating material like mica, phenolic paper, or varnished cambric wrapped around the metal, and then the resistance wire is wrapped around that, with enough spacing that the coils don't touch, and then another layer of varnish is put over it all to hold it together. "Glyptal" varnish was commonly used for electrical stuff back in the day. Obviously this only works if it doesn't get too hot, which is probably true for the gas gauge. If the coils weren't quite touching initially, you might be able to re-wind it and re-varnish it. Any shorted turns would result in an erroneous reading. It might be that the "resistance" wire is just ordinary insulated copper magnet wire, since it doesn't have to tolerate extreme heat. In that case, you could replace it with new wire of the same gauge (probably need a micrometer to check the diameter). You might check the site below for resistance wire. I know they sell some, but I don't know if any is insulated. You'd need the same alloy and the same diameter, or you'd need to measure the resistance of what you have, and somehow wind enough of whatever wire you can find so that it will have that resistance.
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