55 Ford fuel gauge issue

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Originally Posted by Rusty_S85

In 55, they were 6 volt if you convert to 12 volt you need one of those 6 volt, voltage reducers attached to your power feed for your gauge cluster. this will drop the voltage at your sending units down to 6 volts as well.
In 56, they were 12 volt with no voltage reducer, my understanding is 56 was the only year ford ever ran a full 12 volts at the gauges themselves and in 57 they went to voltage regulators that pulse to drop the voltage down to 6 volts.

Because of the way the old King/Seeley gauges function, if they are an original pair, there's actually a good chance they will work on 12v.
"The fuel and temp gauges will work on 6 or 12 V and are not polarity sensitive."
(quote from this link)
https://www.ctci.org/gilsgarage/6to12.php

Originally Posted by Dobie Gillis

The only reason they went back to 6v gauges had to have been the 12v ones weren't holding up and they were getting flack from the customers and dealers. Going back to 6v was prolly the cheapest way out.

While the '57(+) dash gauges do operate on a reduced voltage Ford didn't literally 'go back' to anything. The gauge systems were redesigned to use (what I assume is) the more common resistance type.

If the gauge and sender aren't the same kind they can't talk to each other correctly.


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