Bills59 Tbird Work

[YellowRose]

Bill has been working on his '59 Tbird, as you will see in the pix of his engine bay. He is having a problem getting his instrument gauges to work. It is either CVR problems or the gauges have gone. If anyone has some good tips for him, he could use them. I have given him some ideas. He also has a question regarding if anyone has used soda blasting in painting a car. He also has an interesting story about how he came by his '59 Tbird that I hope we will share with us! Here are a few pix.

[keith]

I am by no means a professional painter. Just a serious hobbyist.

I have read many horror stories of paint adhesion problems with soda blasting. Soda has to be neutralized before anything can be applied to it. That includes door jambs,engine compartments,etc..

A good source for questions on priming and painting is http://spi.forumup.org/

The owner Barry Kives has and is a T-bird enthusiast and restores his own T'Birds. His products can be seen on many Year One cars.

Keith Daleen
Sedalia, MO.

[Guest]

Bill
What kind of problems are you having with your gauges

[JohnG]

Gauge starting point:

at the instrument end:

• get the instrument panel loose so you can get at the rear
• get a multimeter
• get the wiring diagram (see your Shop Manual)
• find the "constant voltage" regulator (or whatever is fashionable to call it) - makes 12V drop to 6 V essentially
• follow the voltage! do you have 12V on one side? 6V fluctuating on the other? go from there to both gauges looking for breaks or leads disconnected etc.

At the other ends (sending units): make sure you have clean grounds!!! This is key. Not much current flowing here so good grounds are important. Briefly simulate the sending unit by grounding the lead out to it - see if the gauge jumps up.

Essentially a process of elimination. Think of the sending units as variable resistors. How much current they allow determines how much the gauge needle moves. Gotta have a complete circuit with a voltage source for it all to work. Fortunately the circuit is linear - follows a single path from battery to ground so not tricky for non electrical guys like us to debug. (battery to key to constant voltage reg to gauges to sending units to ground - verify this on your wiring diagram). One break in it and it fails. The more you understand it, the easier it is to debug.

In the way of my own single experience, neither gauge worked. The temp sending unit had no ground. The gas tank sending unit was broken and thus open electrically. Put in a new one with clean ground. Calibrated.

Once you get them working we can tell you how to calibrate.

John