Botched 6v to 12v conversion

Aquired my lovely '52, Model L110 a couple of years ago. It's in great shape, but still trying to remedy what was (apparently) an incomplete 6v to 12v conversion by/for prior owner - now deceased. Specifically, several of the inst. gauges don't function, including:fuel gauge, oil pressure, and water temp. I don't see any voltage reducers in place
for any of the gauges, and assume they are "fried." If the gauges are victims of voltage overload, is it likely that sender units are shot too? If so, can sender units still be found, or available as new? In a related question, since 6v to 12v conversion also included a switch from positive to neagtive ground, do any of the electircal connections to the gauges need to be reversed?

One last comment re: my experience with this truck. Most advisories on 6V to 12v conversion will suggest that the starter motor needn't be changed over. While true, the starter motor will still work, what most fail to say is that it will turn much faster and likely (at least in my case) chew up the starter gear teeth.

Thanks. This forum is enormously helpful.

Un fortunately most do what is easy and say to hell with the rest. If the vehicle in question has an ammeter the leads need to be swapped for the ammeter to read correctly, nothing will be harmed if not done, it will just read "backwards" (discharge while chargeing and visa versa).
Depending on what senders are used, they may or may not be harmed. The old King Seeley senders (like the one used on the K series) are not easy to find. Ford used them also, but the temp sender for the flathead V-8 is not the same (the flatty used two senders in series) so you need one for a 6 cyl which are not being reproduced AFAIK. I think Ford used a mechanical oil pressure guage (not sure about this) so no help there.
1st thing is to determine which King seeley system your truck has. If it is the older system (with large temp sender) then you have to look for used or NOS. if it is the newer system with the smaller resistance type senders the modern unit should work.

If your starter gear teeth are chewed up, think they might have been that way before you got it? that particular part can be had, is yours now shot? The other Question I want to ask, is are you going to stay with the 12volt set up and fix what you can or are you going back to 6 volt? There are things you need to do either way, CB89 talked about some of the things needed for going back to 6 volt. There are New gauge sets that can fit in the same area as the old ones with new senders for 12volt, not all that cheap but then, nothing is on old vehicles.

While chasing up some parts for my KS5 got this from member tinker925 don't know if it helps here or not.

Sun May 04, 2014 1:25 am
tinker925 wrote:
Tired of the your dash gauges looking worse than the rest of your truck? Get your gauge cluster looking and working like the day it rolled out of the factory! I can do a complete restoration of your K or KB dash gauges addressing every detail of the entire unit. I have restored many of these International clusters and treat each one as if it were going in my own vehicle. Your instrument faceplates will look like brand-new and your speedometer & gauges will all operate properly. A typical complete restoration is $300.00 together with a quick turnaround time. Please feel free to call 218-849-2759 or email me (Larry) at lar@arvig.net for more information.


I sent an email to Larry to find out about getting my gauges restored and also to ask about converting to 12 volt.

This is his reply just thought it would interest others.

Hello Trevor,
On your IHC cluster, all the indicator gauges are made by King Seeley, who made nearly all the gauges for Ford as well as International, Packard, Willys and others. These "pulse-style" King-Seeley's will work just fine on 12-volts or 6-volts but many other gauge brands won't. Just try and use all of the original-style KS senders (oil, temp & gas tank) along with the KS gauges to be sure they will work properly.

If you absolutely do want to put in a resistor to lessen the voltage, the ohm reading for the fuel gauge would be the 75 & 10 ohm type (fuel tank empty = 73 ohms and fuel tank full = 8 to 12 ohms). I would suggest a 10 ohm resistor of a 1/4 amp or larger size put in series with the sender. On a related note, the reproduction tank senders typically don't work well, they are of far less quality than the originals. If you can, find a good used or a NOS King Seeley sender for a 1940's-50's Ford, International or Willys and adjust the float arm to your new tank you will be better off.

I have done other IHC clusters for people in Australia and would be happy to restore your gauge cluster. All the work is done me, in-house and I do whatever it takes to make them look & work like new. Your KS5 gauge cluster would run $300.00 plus the return shipping for a complete restoration. I would rebuild your actual cluster and all the gauge faces would be redone in the correct color & design. The indicator gauges are all cleaned inside & out, tested, repaired if necessary, detailed and calibrated for accuracy. Even the odometer is torn completely down and rebuilt.
Please feel free to contact me at 218-849-2759 or if you want to mail it to me,

Thanks & Best Regards, Larry

Hope this helps

Trevor

Thank you for the helpful commentary and shared knowledge/experience. I'm definitely keeping it as 12 v. It has an alternator on it and lights & turnsignals are all 12 v - working well. It's just the inst. cluster, dash light, and perhaps the heater that's still wired for 6v.

When I pulled the inoperable starter the other day it definitely had chipped front edges on all the starter motor gears teeth. Fortunately, the flywheel doesn't seem as badly worn. No doubt (in my mind, anyway) that this was a consequence of 12v conversion with a 6v starter & solenoid left in place. Really just wanted folks in similar situations to be aware of the potential consequences of this approach, as conversion instructions just gloss over the downside of not reducing the starter motor voltage too, or probably better, converting to a 12v starter system.

Thanks again.

check out the Library section, I think Narwinga's build is on there, and I believe he converted his heater to 12v by changing the motor, others will have better recollection.

I have an NOS IH 85615HA temp sender I bought off eBay several years ago. Some sources say it's the same as the 1940-55 Ford 6-cylinder temp sender, which is Ford part number 8A-10884.

It appears that this sender IS being reproduced:
http://dennis-carpenter.com/temperature-sender/p/49CA-8A-10884/ ... $45 here as opposed to $120 for the only NOS 85615HA sender I found on eBay today.

Ford oil pressure sender 41A-9278 for '44-'53 models seems to be a fair visual match for the IH 84779HB sender: http://dennis-carpenter.com/search.aspx?ss=oil%20pressure&c=&pgnum=2&d=3

So these are a couple of options to consider. Hope this info is helpful.

Wonderful info!

I found a slew of good links thru Stovebolt, I went thru just about all of them and am pretty sure there's an outfit that can repair fuel senders.Don't recall which it was though.

One other thing I found that may be useful to the OP is here;
http://www.fifthaveinternetgarage.com/p ... ter_2.html
Heavy Duty Wire-Wound Heater Blower Motor Voltage Reducer

Here's the link with all the SB links;
http://www.stovebolt.com/links/electrical.html

Tried Googling the pn's Buzz posted and found this...
http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/thre ... on.202345/
Figured it might be somewhat useful since the gauge mfr. is the same.

Since the truck was converted to 12V I went to the MT-118 and checked the senders for the BG engs.

258358C91 Sender, Temp.
No cross found

258357C91 Sender, oil press. w/ King Seeley gauges
PS-113 Standard Motor Products (Rockauto lists this for the BD240)

The light line trucks used a voltage regulator for the gauges,pn 267930C91

Googled that pn and found this (which I've posted before someplace.
http://www.binderplanet.com/forums/show ... hlight=cvr


All the above is Info only,do what you want with it.

There were two people on the old site who did a lot of work on the early King seeley gauges and sender. I think all their research has been lost. One was Kevin (I think), I think the other was someone else who did restoration. The 2nd guy took apart the IHC temp senders and the Ford senders and found they are internally a little different. The V8 ford used two senders, one in each bank, one was a two wire and one a one wire. They were wired in series. He found that the Ford units had a slightly different calabation due to haveing two in series. I would question if the Denis Carpanter unit can funtion for both systems. ( single and dual). While it may make the gauge move, it will likely be off, dispite what the mfg is saying in their ad, or the Ford gauge heads are different for the V8 and 6. I don't remember exactly what the differance was but it had to do with the resistor card being different, It might have been 13 vs. 19 ohms but my memory isn't too clear. I am more likely to take the word of someone who dis assembled and tested over the ad of someone selling it.