BiMetallic gauge repair

I need to start figuring out how to fix a few of these gauges for our Dart and Valiant. I thought I had this sort of figured out to buy the materials but now I am confused. The '63 the ohms across the gauges was ~21 ohms and the nichrome ended up coming out to about 20 ohms/foot and I see that number around a lot. Now I have a '66 Valiant dash. The fuel gauge measured out to 12.6 ohms so I thought it was likely shorted due to the insulation falling off the nichrome. The temp gauge the wire was burned open so I pulled it apart and unwound the nichrome from the biMetallic tab and it comes out to about 9.6 ohms per foot and assuming that the fuel gauge should be about 12.6 ohms.

That said this means that the Valiant gauges will pull 2x the current of the more common 21 ohms. Does this seem right? These gauges are rather weird the way the needle is connected... the are sort of free floating and have wire hoop that loops through the end of the biMetallic and also through sort of a counter spring. I can see where it may need more heat to move the biMetallic more...

Has anyone rewound their nichrome and does this 1/2 resistance make sense on the '66 Valiant?

Thanks
Jim