Well the saga of the non working gas gauge is over, I now have a working gas gauge. I have been working on getting the gas gauge to work in my Ranch Wagon. I just bought it about months or so go and the gas gauge did not work, the previous owner put a new gas tank in it the day before I picked it up and assured me the gauge sender was ok because he performed an ohm test and it passed. He also gave me 2 extra gauge panels and I started working on a solution by swapping voltage regulators and different gas gauges doing all the different tests I have read on this forum. "It can't be the sender it is ok" so I finally ordered the replacement Ebay T-Bird sender and put it in the same position the original was in and it did not fix the problem. I tested both of the senders and they both seem good, the gauge had a full swing from empty to full but the original had a float full of gas. I rotated the new sender 90 degrees and it started to work as designed it must have been rubbing on the inside of the tank. I spent around 15 - 20 hours on this simple little problem. Moral of the story always check the obvious and just because someone tells you it is fine check it any ways.
It always seems like the simple things take the most time...I am still trying to get the parking brake to work!
The originals have an offset bend in the arm to keep the float off the side. I've seen cheap repops only have a straight arm.
Jim is correct. The Ranchero and wagon use an offset arm on the sending unit. As far as I know, no one reproduces the sending unit for a ranchero or wagon.
Well that would explain why I had to rotate the sender 90 degrees clockwise. Thanks for that information I can see now the sender I removed was also a replacement sender from a long time ago. Any way the sender I got off of ebay works but the arm is too short so I bent it down a little but for under $45 it is a bargain. It will show full for a long time and it is off the bottom of the tank by about 2 inches so there is a good reserve built in too.