Golden Jubilee
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Location: Bothell, Washington
IHC in the early to mid-fifties.
Golden Jubilee
Posts: 4934
Joined: Thu Nov 29, 2012 11:47 am
Location: Bothell, Washington
Golden Jubilee
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Joined: Sat Oct 26, 2013 10:11 am
Location: SW Washington
Golden Jubilee
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Joined: Fri Nov 30, 2012 6:32 am
Location: Minnesota
cornbinder89 wrote:I've seen gauges in the K series fail with just a quick "jump start to get it going" from a 12 volt vehicle. L-R series are simler in constrution of the guages to the K.
Sometime in the mid 50's two things happened... The std for vehicles went from 6 volt to 12, and King Seeley changed how the guages worked. Niether of these changes can be pinned down to a spefic date (before X/X/XXX things were one way, After y/y/yyyy they were another) so a little caution is needed.
The later King Seeley system was used right up until the end of the light line (in the 80's) and was also used by Ford and Chry ( thru at least the mid 70's). While the faces on a guages of Ford and Chry differ from the faces used by IHC, the guage itself can have the faces swapped. If I were going to change a six volt King Seeley vehicle, I would install the COMPLETE gauge system from one of these later (12 volt) cars, allowing the use of easyer to find senders and parts to the older vehicle, and still retain the look of the orignals.
The later system is compatable with 12 volts.
Haveing said that, I have never felt the need to change from six volts.
Because componants for the old 6 volt stuff is no longer being made, nor readly avaible, I consider ANY loss of componant life unacceptable.
The early guages are hard to come by in working order, but senders are even harder to find. These early senders are not a flat resistace type used in the later system but have a resiatace "card" with a pulseing set of contacts biult into them. For this reason no modern flat resistance sender will work and give the same readings as the orignal senders.
I can not comment on Bruce Frank's experiance other then to say, I have not seen what he has in his truck, nor has it been my experiance that 6 volt gauges survive on 12 volt for even a short while, nor do they give correct readings while they are trying to funtion on 12 volts. Electical theroy doesn't back up his assertions either.
For all the reasons I have stated, I plead with people who just can't wait to crank up an old truck, and have to do it with a 12 volt battery, to reach up behind the dash an snip the feed with to the guages and disconeecting the voltage reg and genny before they do, thus saveing the old stuff while satisfieing their curosity if it will start.
What you do is up to you, but so far the number of people who have had burned guages out number those how have not by several factors of 10.
Golden Jubilee
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Location: Central PA
Golden Jubilee
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Joined: Tue Jul 16, 2013 2:26 pm
Location: Central PA
Golden Jubilee
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Rusty Driver
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Golden Jubilee
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Rusty Driver
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