fuel guage

[robbzfc58]

g'day
       most fcs i've seen have the lettering on the fuel guage painted on by hand. can anyone explain why .
they appear to all be done in a very similar style-perhaps all by the same person. are fes the same

[mike]

I dont know whether they were painted by hand or some mechanical means but on my FC 215 it must have been while the operater was drunk they are so misalinged it is amazing but i will be leaving it original, i will post a pic, also my FC fuel writing is much larger than my FE and even larger than oil & gen writing, FE is SA build FC is VIC build maybe different suppliers,

regards mike

[RET]

I'd be very surprised if they were hand-painted, in fact would go so far as to say that I am sure they weren't.

What tends to happen is that the white lettering starts to melt after protracted amounts of time in the sun.  This is even more apparent in FEs than FCs, because they don't have the protection of the dash shroud.

You see the letters gradually expand and get fainter and rougher around the edges.

Wilsonia gauges must (I suspect) have used a different lettering process, because their letters tend to simply fall off rather than melt.

If I get the opportunity I'll take a photo of the gauges in my cars.  The blue car (low mileage, still unnamed :-/) has had a very sheltered existence, and its original gauges still look new.  Faecal, OTOH, has had a hard life and spent lots of time in the sun, so its gauges look like they were hand painted by a 6 year old!

cheers
RET

[Hotlips]

  ;)Hey Richard, How about naming your blue car "BLOO POO" seeing your other car is named "faecal".  Wouldn't that confuse us POOMOBILS.
Just joshing,  Cheers Kathleen

[RET]

I'll think about it.

OK I've thought about it.  No.

[4hammers]

Hi People.
RET is spot on. It is some sort of paint & when new, it is very vibrant & solid (I have a NOS fuel gauge). The one on my low milage ute is perfect, as was the one on my wagon. You may note I said "WAS". The reason being, was one day, when I was running on empty, I tapped the gauge (As you do when it has about 45 cents left in the tank. Hmm, bad move, as soon as I tapped it, EVERY bit of paint fell off the backing!! Just turned to powder!
Oh well, not to worry, another learning curve!

Hey, what about a competition to suggest names for RET's new FE??? Could give him some inspiration!!
My suggestion is "TAS". Considering it is a Tassie car & that name was more common back in those days.
What do you reckon, RET??

Regards,
Rob J

[slim]

Should call it Blue "steal"or Steel" cause he stole it from someone for that price. And its made of the real stuff . So I vote BLUE STEEL..   PS 4 Hammers , I had the same thing happen to me when I tapped on the fuel gauge , Guess we should put fuel in the tank once in a while  

[mcl1959]

Absolutely right, I have about 20 fuel guages at home and they vary from good to absurdly bad.  Certainly when they left the factory they were all perfect lettered and the fluorescence was still there.

BTW  I have a NOS fuel guage if anyone is interested in it - $40 plus postage.
Sorry if this shoul go in the for sale area - just thought about it when this topic came up.

Ken

[craiga]

Could the paint on the fuel gauges be failing because of the heat generated by the gauge mechanism?  My gauge tends to "fog" on colder days which proves there is heat generated in there somewhere. The idiot light set doesn't suffer as there is no heat against the rear of the glass.

I have a NOS one downstairs so I'll pull it apart and have a look at exactly what's in there.

Paid more than $40.00 for mine though  

Cheers,

Craig.

[Hotlips]

  Okay, another name for Richard's Blue Car - let me see, when you're feeling blue you are usually "DOWN & OUT" which sort of goes with the name of the other car Richard owns - but we won't go there!!   My, what a crazy sense of humour!!!!!  Love ya Richard,  HOTLIPS

[RET]

This is supposed to be a thread about the lettering on Fuel Gauges, not a competition to find some scatalogical theme for my beautiful car!  For what it's worth, Faecal is a corruption of the rego "FEC00L", that someone - who didn't know much about Holdens - suggested when they saw the plates sitting on my desk at work after I picked them up from the RTA.  And the name kind of stuck (as if to a blanket, boom tish).

Unfortunately 28267-H doesn't roll off the tongue nearly so well

cheers
RET

[mcl1959]

Craig, there is a small coil of wire which is energised by the voltage coming from the sender unit.  The resultant magnetic field is what moves the needle.  I dont know if there is a lot of heat there, maybe just a little bit - but surely not enough to melt the lettering on the glass.

Ken