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I would take an angle grinder (or hacksaw if you prefer) and at a 45 degree angle, with a thin cutting blade, make two "nearly to the threads" cuts into the nut at different positions around the nut...then put a stout screwdriver into the cuts and twist the nut off...chase the threads with a die and replace the nut with a new one.

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That's a great idea. The nut shouldn't be too hard to break off that way.

Very little time to do anything, but I was able to get the old nut off by cutting it off as DM37 suggested. Cleaned up the threads and got a new nut. I made an insulator out of a ball point own casing, since it was handy and that plastic is pretty strong. Works great




Now I'm struggling to get three tank back in. Getting things lined up and the T bolts in is a real challenge. The bolts are too short, so I might just buy new longer ones. It's really not worth the fight to use the old ones. Such a pain to drop and reinstall tanks.

I typically use a floor jack with some boards across it to protect the tank which frees up both hands to actually get it connected. The last time I did it, though, I used a transmission jack as the car was on the lift.

Still no time to finish the fuel tank. But new longer t bolts are on order, as well as a cheap fuel gauge that reads 73 at empty and 0 at full. It will read empty well before the gas is actually gone (115 ohms) but at least I'll have an idea of where I'm at.

In the meantime I had to move it out of the lift spot so I could help some young men learn how to do oil and brakes on their cars. Gas can on the running board with fuel hose stuck in it worked great. Let it get up to temp before I put it away again. Goal now is to put it back together over Thanksgiving weekend.

Finally got around to wrapping up the fuel tank and sender. However, the solder holding the pickup tube on the sender cracked, and my attempts to repair it were unsuccessful. I don't have the right tools. An attempt to repair using JB weld also failed unsurprisingly. At this point I decided to install the tank anyways and drop it again later when I have access to the correct tools. The pickup tube is held in place fairly well, but my concern is that gas will leak out around the tube when the tank is full.

Before installing I tested the sender with a generic fuel gauge to use until the original one can be repaired. This gauge is 0 ohms at full and 73 ohms at empty. As such it will show empty before the tank is actually out of fuel, but that's not a bad thing.

Full:



Half:



Empty. You can see that the float is not all the way down.



I replaced the too short t-bolts with some meant for pre war Chevy's. They are much longer and coarse thread. There was just enough thread to get the tank snug before the nut bottomed out. Much easier to install with these longer bolts.



Car seems to run fine at idle, it's obviously pulling fresh gas from the tank. The real test will be out on the road, but it's super cold here right now and I don't feel like getting stranded in it. But at least I can check valves now and run through some other potential problem points causing poor running.