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Gas tank sender gasket. material
#1
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Dave Kenney
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Where possible I like to make my own gaskets so now I want to make one for my Packard gas tank where the sender unit attaches. What would be the best material. The original seems to be some type of rubber material which is in very poor shape. Would cork work as a substitute? From the photo on the online catalogue it appears that the gasket Max Merritt sells is cork.

Posted on: 2008/10/25 16:16
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Re: Gas tank sender gasket. material
#2
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Owen_Dyneto
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Cork would work just fine. The large gas tank inlet gasket on my 34 Eight is cork, I made and installed it about 15 years ago; it's on the side of the tank and it's constantly wetted with gas, and it's never needed attention since.

Buna-nitrile rubber would also be compatible with EtOH/gasoline blends.

Posted on: 2008/10/25 17:49
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Re: Gas tank sender gasket. material
#3
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Eric Boyle
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I would avoid cork on any fuel system component, as today's fuel has enough alcohol in it to eat right through it. It will also eat into and destroy a cork float on a sending unit. If your sending unit was working before and now it stopped, my bet is that it's been dissolved by the alcohol.

Posted on: 2008/10/25 19:11
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Re: Gas tank sender gasket. material
#4
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Dave Kenney
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Quote:

Turbopackman wrote:
I would avoid cork on any fuel system component, as today's fuel has enough alcohol in it to eat right through it. It will also eat into and destroy a cork float on a sending unit. If your sending unit was working before and now it stopped, my bet is that it's been dissolved by the alcohol.


The cork float is just fine. In Canada we don't have ethanol gasoline yet so maybe that is the reason. When I am in Minnesota I buy the "off road and collector car gas" that also is ethanol free. I have heard that the cork float should be painted with POR15 to protect it from ethanol however.

Posted on: 2008/10/25 22:42
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Re: Gas tank sender gasket. material
#5
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Eric Boyle
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The only reason why Canada isn't using ethanol in their gas is because Canada is 50 years behind the rest of the world technologically!

In all honesty, I'd do it in preparation for alcohol in the fuel, because one of these days it'll be in there, probably without your knowledge. Like the Boy Scouts, it's best to be prepared!

As for the POR-15 on the floats, I actually read that last night on a carburetor website while I was researching the Rochester 4GC.

Posted on: 2008/10/25 23:22
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Re: Gas tank sender gasket. material
#6
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Owen_Dyneto
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I would avoid cork on any fuel system component, as today's fuel has enough alcohol in it to eat right through it. It will also eat into and destroy a cork float on a sending unit

Possibly so, though as I said I've had no problems with cork with the 10% EtOH gasoline. My float is also cork (uncoated), still functioning fine, and the gasket on the fuel pump sediment bowl is also cork, and no problems there either. Perhaps the problems will come down the line, though as I retired chemist I don't recall that EtOH attacks cork. But the old standard of coating the sending unit cork float with shellac should be avoided as EtOH is a solvent for shellac.

Posted on: 2008/10/26 7:49
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Re: Gas tank sender gasket. material
#7
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Dave Kenney
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Quote:

Turbopackman wrote:
The only reason why Canada isn't using ethanol in their gas is because Canada is 50 years behind the rest of the world technologically!


The reason Canada isn't using ethanol is because we don't have a strong corn farmers lobby group and a bunch of corn state senators pushing this junk science on the government to get billions of dollars in subsidies to grow the stuff but I heard that the Conservative gov't is planning on refining and producing gas from muskox dung to support the Eskimo lobby so stand by as we are learning how your government works up here. Until then I guess you will just have to accept the one million barrels of oil we send down your way every day the way it is.

Quote:
In all honesty, I'd do it in preparation for alcohol in the fuel, because one of these days it'll be in there, probably without your knowledge. Like the Boy Scouts, it's best to be prepared!

As for the POR-15 on the floats, I actually read that last night on a carburetor website while I was researching the Rochester 4GC


I would be worried about coating the float and then the POR 15 would somehow come off and get stuck in the pickup tube. I don't need that problem either.

Posted on: 2008/10/26 8:20
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Re: Gas tank sender gasket. material
#8
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Dave Kenney
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Owen, The float on my Packard is in excellent shape with the shellac covering about 80% of the cork so I do not have a problem yet. We do have a couple of Spur stations bringing gas up from Minnesota and selling the stuff as being "cleaner and greener" but one recently went out for business so I guess it doesn't sell well.

Posted on: 2008/10/26 8:49
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Re: Gas tank sender gasket. material
#9
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HH56
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Another option for others might be the brass float Eric said is still available from Ford if that gauge could be made to work with it.

Posted on: 2008/10/26 9:09
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Re: Gas tank sender gasket. material
#10
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Dave Kenney
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HH56, That thought crossed my mind about the brass float but as I stated I think ethanol is a dead issue here at least for the time being. The gov't mandated 5% but that seemd to be the limit. With our vast oil reserves and the huge oil company lobby I doubt the farmers have a chance at pushing this stuff beyond that amount.
BTW I got my float sender to work. I found that the brush portion was touching in two places just after the float reached about the 1/2 way mark. One end of the brush was touching the power terminal end. Once I bent the end so that it no longer touched the gauge reads fine. Thanks for all your help.

Posted on: 2008/10/26 12:30
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