I have removed the petrol tank on the Pearl, to replace the gauge sender (Fed up with dipsticks after 6 years!). Can anyone enlighten me on how the rubber pads BE225 and distance collars BE226 etc fit together ? How thick are the rubber pads ? And why the rubber mounting anyway, is it to avoid the tank being strained by chassis flex ?

Correct re the rubber mounting, although not so on early Sevens, Austin finally got around to insulating metal to metal mountings. As Australian bodies may be different I'll leave to someone qualified to adise on other questions. However I do know there are two different senders and fitting the wrong one will give incorrect readings, so suggest check before fitting your new one. Faint memory makes me think there was something about this subject on this site in the past? Cheers, Bill in Oz

Another sevener has told me that the rubber pads are 1/8 inch thick, followed by a strip with 2 holes and then the distance pieces. This must mean that the tank earthing at the rear is rather tenuous,so perhaps the gauge return current is meant to flow down the copper petrol pipe ? The new sender is 27 ohms when empty, and the gauge is marked in gallons. When temporarily rigged up outside the tank it all works OK. The old sender has a small rust hole in the float, which may be repairable as a spare.

Very wise to replace/use the rubber mounts.
I was not aware of them on the special and bolted the tank straight up! The lack of bodywork on the Ruby extensions caused massive flex and starin on the tank which has split by the mounts twice now!
The tank will be repaired and fitted with rubber mounts on the truck.

Steve.

p.s I run a seperate earth from the sender to the chassis rail.

Hi

When I took my Ruby apart 10 years ago, I don't remember any rubber tank/mounting spacers, but then a lot of the original rubber items had either gone gooey or brittle, or just gone. So I bolted the tank back on just using the metal spacers.

If there is the possibility that the tank is being over-stressed I would like to fit them, or a suitable equivalent. What do they look like, please?

Regards

Colin

Judging from the decaying remnants found, the rubber mounts are a "dog bone" shape about 1/8 th of an inch thick with two holes to match the u-bolt. No sign of the metal strip underneath, but I would imagine that penny washers would be effective. Order of assembly is U-bolt, rubber, strip/washers, spacers, tank, shakeproof washers and nuts.

Hi

Thanks. I just looked through a jar of rusty bits, mostly nuts and bolts, left over from the rebuild and found the remnants. I had wondered where they were from.

Regards

Colin