I'd say not. I'm not alone. I know several who've used them with good success. I'm going by experience, not internet hearsay.Your the exception, or your standards are really low
Gas Tank Questions
- Thread starter Road Grabber
- Start date
-
My too with gallon by gallon testing.
I’ve used the Spectra sending units, I’m not paying $300 for a rebuild. Plus I use 3/8” pickups so that would be extra.
The part that isn’t accurate is the first half a tank because of the spare tire well, the gauge goes down pretty quick to around the 1/2 mark and then slows down.
And really I don’t need my gauge to fractionally represent the number of gallons in my tank perfectly. As long as it’s consistent it doesn’t matter, I drive my car enough to know what’s what. I mean, it’s a 16 gallon tank so half should be 8, 1/4 should be 4 right? Well, if “half” is 10 and “quarter” is 5 it doesn’t matter as long as I know that. And since I put gas in the thing every week I know that. If half was 7 and quarter was 3 it’s the same deal, as long as you know what’s left the gauge has done it’s job, I don’t need it to be accurate to the ounce I just need it to consistently read the same thing at the same level, which the Spectra’s do just fine.
And you can bend the float arm if you really don’t like it. It doesn’t fix the scaling issue from the inconsistent tank shape but it will change what it reads when, like if you want a couple gallons in the tank when it hits the peg you can accomplish that pretty easily.
The part that isn’t accurate is the first half a tank because of the spare tire well, the gauge goes down pretty quick to around the 1/2 mark and then slows down.
And really I don’t need my gauge to fractionally represent the number of gallons in my tank perfectly. As long as it’s consistent it doesn’t matter, I drive my car enough to know what’s what. I mean, it’s a 16 gallon tank so half should be 8, 1/4 should be 4 right? Well, if “half” is 10 and “quarter” is 5 it doesn’t matter as long as I know that. And since I put gas in the thing every week I know that. If half was 7 and quarter was 3 it’s the same deal, as long as you know what’s left the gauge has done it’s job, I don’t need it to be accurate to the ounce I just need it to consistently read the same thing at the same level, which the Spectra’s do just fine.
And you can bend the float arm if you really don’t like it. It doesn’t fix the scaling issue from the inconsistent tank shape but it will change what it reads when, like if you want a couple gallons in the tank when it hits the peg you can accomplish that pretty easily.
Heck I have had tons of Mopars that the gas gauge NEVER worked. I just filed it up every so many days, as they were daily drivers!!!!
...and yet you cannot tell people anything like that. They'll argue till the cows come home.
Nobody said that.
But the idea that you can't keep yourself from running out of gas if you use a Spectra reproduction instead of a rebuilt factory sender is just silly. Consistency is more important than accuracy, as long as I know what the gauge indicates and it does that consistently I won't run out of gas, even if a 1/2 tank on the gauge isn't exactly a 1/2 tank by volume.
It's like knowing how many miles you've traveled and understanding roughly what your gas mileage is. Sure, it might not be perfect, but I know I can drive ~200 miles if I filled it up, and also that I shouldn't try and drive 250. And I know when my gauge hits "E" I actually have a few gallons left, but I don't let it go that far very often either.
I'll give you one even better than all this. The 73-79 Ford trucks for example (I have a 75 F250HD) have an over sized gas tank available (Yes it's a Spectra). The stock tank is 19 gallon and the over size tank is 38 gallon. Twice the size. I got one a while back for my truck. I did a little research on a few Ford Truck forums. You should have seen all the whining and crying because no one makes a specific sending unit for the over size tank. There's a company that makes a really, really chinsey kit that increases the length of the float arm.....It's just a total POS kit. There's that OR the Bronco of the early 80s has a sending unit that's a drop in, but that tank is "only" 32 gallons. Know where the difference is as far as the gauge reading? Right at the top 1/4 to 3/8 range. From "about" 1/2 tank "on down" it reads almost dead nuts on, so when it reads E, you best be gettin some gas, because it's right. I preached and preached on a couple of those forums to just run the Bronco sender only to get "It's not accurate" and " it doesn't read full correctly". When the tank is full, the gauge reads well past the F and takes some time to come down into the gauge readable range. No big deal. You know the beeotch is FULL. What difference does it really make as long as when it gets close to E that it's right? You just caint fix stupid.
The pad between tank & body is same as roofing felt, only thicker so use two layers.
-
