I filled the gas tank on my 61 Hawk when I hauled it home from the body shop recently. When i got home fuel was running down the front of the tank and onto the trailer. That's not good. The car sits to low for me to slide in under it without jacking it up so I grabbed a siphon hose and siphoned out about 5 gallons before it stopped. I got the car off the trailer and into the garage and it was still leaking some. I opened the trunk and took the cover off the sending unit and the gas was leaking out around the screw heads as well as the gasket. The gasket looked like black rubber only made out of some other material. I tried to loosen the screws and make a new gasket but the gas started pouring out. I tightened them back up as much as possible without fear of stripping and it stopped but not 100%. There were 2 wires going to the sending unit. 1 was to the sender and one was added to one of the screw heads as a ground.
I did some research and found out that there is supposed to be some special copper washers (5) that go under the screw heads to seal the threads from leaking. So I ordered 2 cork gaskets from SI (1 Spare) along with the special copper washers and hopefully this will eliminate the leak issue, which could be devastating. I went ahead and replaced the 3/8 rubber line from the tank to the hard line as it was feeling mushy. I was told by another Studebaker owner that this NEW gas is hard on all the rubber lines, etc. and needs to be periodically replaced.
The cold weather has hindered me from working on it but wondered if anybody else had this same problem. Also was there 2 wires to the sender unit originally or did someone add the extra one as a safety measure ?
I did some research and found out that there is supposed to be some special copper washers (5) that go under the screw heads to seal the threads from leaking. So I ordered 2 cork gaskets from SI (1 Spare) along with the special copper washers and hopefully this will eliminate the leak issue, which could be devastating. I went ahead and replaced the 3/8 rubber line from the tank to the hard line as it was feeling mushy. I was told by another Studebaker owner that this NEW gas is hard on all the rubber lines, etc. and needs to be periodically replaced.
The cold weather has hindered me from working on it but wondered if anybody else had this same problem. Also was there 2 wires to the sender unit originally or did someone add the extra one as a safety measure ?
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