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Fuel tank in my 1949 Deluxe 8 Packard is beyond repair. Have been searching for a replacement tank with not much luck. It looks like at the moment I am going to have to have a new one built. I need to know the ohm"s that the fuel gauge requires so the vendor can add a sender unit in the tank when he builds it. The new tank is expensive in my eyes $895 without the sending unit. In a nutshell any help would be very much appreciated. Since I am new to the forum a little history about car: Is my first car to start restoring. I purchased this car from original owner it has 28000 miles on it. The interior is in amazing condition but it has not ran for many years, it does turn over but no brakes etc. I am new to forums so not sure about proper etiquette. Thank you

Welcome to the forum.

The 48-50 gauges use senders which are bimetal strips with an on and off operation and do not put out a constant resistance reading. Two heaters - one in the gauge and one in the sender - are in series. The fuel float operates a cam affair which loads the bimetal strip. The changing force makes that heater work proportionally to change the on vs off time period which changes the gauge heater time on or off to move the needle accordingly. The oil and temp senders are similar with temp or pressure changing the load on the bimetal strips.

Having said that, you might look at at a project blog on the PAC forum where a fellow is doing some experimentation with a modern sender and also modifying a Chevy repro tank to fit the 22-23 series. It is a lengthy blog but some sender info is on page 46 as well as scattered about earlier where he starts the experiment.

His car is not done yet and the viability of the chosen sender is not proven but it and the tank might be a starting point. You might also send him a private message and see if there are any updates.

As information, here is an oscilloscope photo showing the output of the bimetal sender.

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G'day Roger L. Yarger,
to PackardInfo and I invite you to include your '49 Deluxe Eight in the Packard Owner's Registry.