New Laser Powered Fuel Gauge!

that's right I'm going to have a laser inside my fuel tank good morning I'm working out here in my shop today and I have the coolest rig in here I want to show you this is a 1979 Jeep Wagoner named Sasquatch it's owned by a good friend of mine Trent Campbell I'm going to be doing a little bit of work on it these look cool I don't even know what they're for check this out the interior is just as cool as the [Music] outside this thing has a 392 Hemi a tremi 5-speed a full roll cage custom leather seats and all the off-road goodies underneath this vehicle went to SEMA in 2022 and it has been all over the country at car shows and it's finally working its way back home this thing went to Moab and they did some rock crawling there and there was a little damage but the steering down here actually took some serious hits okay I'm going to show you what happened down here so we're going [Music] up you can you see right there that is pretty bent it got hit down here bent that arm this one got hit too got pushed up pretty good that's bent right there there's a plate down here that kind of protects it but I don't think it's able to stop it this far forward from pushing up or pushing in all right the front axle on this thing is a Superduty axle and I'm sure that this stabilizer setup was a great setup for a Superduty but it just hangs down too low and too far forward for a rock crawler so I'm going to take these off they're a little bit bent up the steering gear right here needs to be pulled out removed sent to PSC they will Port that so that it has little fittings on the side for the hydraulic ram to be added in [Music] [Music] this is all of the stuff we took out right here okay we got the stabilizers out of there and that opened up a whole bunch of space down here to stick a hydraulic assist RAM and I think with the new Ram in there we won't even miss the stabilizers they're so strong that they just really slow down everything and smooth it all out they do way more than you could ever do with a steering stabilizer I think there plenty of space right in this area I don't have any of those components right now so I'm just going to work on getting the gear out of here and get that shipped off to PSC this bumper bracket is blocking all of the steering bolts that I need to get to on this side of the frame so I'm just going to cut this thing take it out I'll punch some holes into it so this steering gear can be serviced with the bumper in place I'll weld it back up so it's stronger than ever [Music] okay okay we got the steering gear out of there I K the hose pretty bad getting it out but doesn't matter cuz when I put in a new Reservoir that hose will get replaced anyway so I'm going to package this thing up and send it off to PSC somewhere on this steering gear PSC will drill holes for pressure lines to come off and feed down to the hydraulic assist Ram that Ram will push left and right on the tie rod as you're trying to steer all right this thing is all stripped down so it's ready to come down I'm going to push it outside and I'll just wait until all the stuff comes and I can put this thing back together obviously it's not going to steer now I got to get it out of here maybe I'll wait till Bridger comes home he can help me he is graduating this year and he's our youngest kid and he is moving right back to Idaho like 2 days after he graduates so Angela and I are like a month away from being empty nesters it's going to be hard I don't raising kids is all we've done so I don't know we might be heading back up to Idaho a lot this summer on to the next thing which is something I've been wanting to get back to for a while and that's this gas tank that's been sitting here I'm going to start by welding in this gas cap and then I'm going to build some kind of feet or Mount so I can bolt it into my truck that looks like that's about the right size so I've got a Hool saw into the tank here I feel bad I'm going to dump a bunch of metal chips into the tank but it has to be done [Music] [Music] [Music] okay I'm ready to weld this cap on now and I didn't want to leave the aluminum cap on here because I thought the heat might melt the threads and I don't want the weld to like mess up the threads like spatter to get in these so I taped them all up and this tape may burn up while I'm welding but I'm okay with that [Music] it's cooled off now so I'm going to check the cap here okay that was a win that cap threads on nice and smooth I'm going to move on to the feet now and I think I want to build some little plates to strengthen up the area that the feet attach so that they don't like rip off or bend or like ever tear holes in the side of the tank when everything's sosing and banging around so I'm going to make those really quick on my plasma cutter then I'll come back here and weld them [Music] on okay these are the plates I cut out I'm going to clean them up and deur all the edges and get them ready to weld [Music] on these little reinforcement panels turned out pretty nice I'm ready to weld them in but my daughter Jesse is coming down she's been away at school up at Rexburg Idaho so we're going to go hang out have a little fun I'll take you along and show you some of that we're going to head out and go do a couple of fun things while she's here Al got Ethan over here Jesse doesn't like to be on the camera this is a rare moment it's a rare moment oh my gosh oh my gosh we should warn everybody right now Jesse's kind of a screamer I'm good I'm good yeah okay I don't know if you guys picked up on that but my daughter brought a boy home from college what's up with that isn't it enough that she has a [Music] dad so Jesse had a friend that said my truck's too wide to go do the shoot so we're going to head over and do the shoot RI is going to be like it was me oh my gosh oh my gosh we're going to come around a corner here and then we will go in through a little crack and then straight up that's the shoot that is not it you'll be fine why doesn't it fall backwards that's not how gravity works I can't do this you're going to be fine this is the part that your friend thought I wasn't going to fit through but we'll fit through it we'll just we'll just drive up the side a little bit oh my gosh oh yeah we're going to line up just right here okay you ready Jess no I Haven been ready the whole time oh my gosh okay oh my gosh here we go oh my gosh just hang on you're good gosh oh my gosh why is this working I don't understand oh my gosh hang on Jess it's going to get oh my gosh I don't get it okay we're going over we're going over what is over what's after this we the down that's it you did it okay I did it nice here we go oh oh my gosh all right good job thank you we're going to stop right here and let Jesse drive for a little bit because she's been asking it's in four low and all you got to do is move it into three and then drive right there yep so can I turn yeah okay should I get the gas she's going to be an off-roader a serious hardcore off-roader one day we had a really fun time out there that was a great ride it's a beautiful day Ethan actually seems like a really nice guy but I'm sure I will come up with a reason not to like him okay we're filling up really quick at Adventures first stop then we're going to head up to zans I think the hardest part of this hike is over and that was getting a parking spot in here but thanks to Angela she found some people that were leaving good job thank you she had to tell two people this spot was taken take two people down yeah this is competitive [Music] hey there's a few more of those but you get the [Music] idea all right I'm back in the shop that was super fun hanging out with my daughter Jesse she's back in Idaho now I didn't find any major red flags with Ethan he seemed like a really nice guy but I'm watching okay back on the fuel tank I've got those little uh reinforcement plates I'm going to weld on and then the mounting feet [Music] [Music] these reinforcement panels are all welded up now I just have to go build the feet I cut out all my parts let me show you what I'm thinking these little tubes I'm going to cut diagonally and I'll just keep like a wedge shaped piece and the little bottom piece I'll drill a hole in these I'll weld those together to make a little foot and I can weld them right here on the side of the tank [Music] [Music] all right I got all my little pieces cut out here and if I had have thought about it more I'd have realized I can use both sides of this so I only needed two of those so I have some spares and you can see right here how they fit together I just need to weld them all up and then I can stick them on here I even made sure a socket would fit in there so I can get the bolts on I have the four feet all built and I clamped two of them to the table here right in the position that I need to weld them so I'm ready to bomb those in [Music] [Music] everything is welded on to this thing so now I'm going to look for leaks and all of these weld seams somewhere there's probably some little tiny pin holes that if I don't address they will seep gas forever I can actually see a couple spots that might leak I'm going to hit those with a TIG welder really quick then I'm going to pressurize this tank and spray some soapy water all over the seams and look for bubbles [Music] right in the whole tank I found one leak which is the perfect number to find because now I know my Leak Detection method is working and I don't have a lot of holes to fix sometimes if you weld on just a sealed container the heat from the welding will create pressure and try to blow out the weld so we don't want to do that I release a pressure right here now I can weld up the hole retested it and everything looks good but I don't want any problems with this tank in the future I don't want pinhole leaks developing I don't want to have corrosion issues so I'm going to seal this tank with this p15 fuel tank sealer and there's a process for using this there's a cleaning washing step and then there's a metal prep step you need to SOS this around and then let it sit on each side for 2 hours while the Degreaser is doing its thing in the tank I'm going to go through this fuel pump and this Fuel Center that I picked up from Holly this is the pump this little tiny guy will feed four to 500 horsepower it's going to work with the engine I have right now and anything I put in there in the future this is what's going to bolt to the top of the tank all the fuel's going to come in and out through this and it looks awesome it's also got this cool hydromat pickup it's like a giant sponge so it'll soak up gas from both ends of the tank so it doesn't matter if I'm pointed uphill or downhill I should always have fuel to my engine but I've got one other thing I want to show you this is the latest fuel level sender from Holly this thing uses lar so there's no big arm sticking down in the tank there's no float inside that'll crack and stop working so liar is kind of like sewn or radar sonar uses sound waves so like ships or submarines in the water can send out that sound wave to detect how far another ship or submarine is away radar uses radio waves and it shoots them out in the sky so you can detect how far an airplane or a UFO is liar is fairly new it stands for light detection and ranging and it shoots out a laser and measures how long it takes for a reflection to come back then it can calculate the distance to that thing they've been using it in airplanes shooting it down at the ground to map the Earth finding all kind of cool ruins and forest and jungles we're going to use it here to measure the top of the level of the gas tank so it knows if it's far or low if it's close or full that's right I'm going to have a laser inside my fuel tank it doesn't sound like a good idea but we're going to try it forever the old fuel senders work like this they had this arm that would stick off on the side and where this blue tape is there was some kind of a ball or a float that would actually float on the top of the fuel level and there's electrical contacts that would move along a resistive wire so the resistance in here would change as the level went up and down and then the gauge inside your vehicle would measure this resistance and it would indicate full or empty accordingly so there are these different standards out there and that's what's wrong with my truck the gauge is mismatched for the fuel cender that's in the tank right now but Holly fixed all of those issues with this new fuel Senter this sensor actually shoots out light that reflects off of the top of the fuel level it comes back up and hits a sensor using that time and the speed of light it can calculate what the distance is and then it knows if the tank is full or empty you can also program it using these little buttons on the inside so it can change how much resistance is seen by the gauge when it's full and empty just using the little buttons in here and following the instructions you can get this thing perfect for almost any vehicle there's some super cool Tech going into these I think this kind of gauge might be standard on Teslas if you have any experience with it let me know in the comments the next step for me to get my fuel gauge working is to figure out which gauge I have in my truck that's why it doesn't work right now is cuz the gauge and the center don't have matching resistance values that's why none of them work in mats off-road recovery that's what I'm going to go figure out and then we can get this thing programmed so my fuel gauge sender is hidden right down here and I'm actually going to unhook the wire and splice in different resistors and see which one makes this thing work properly so I went and dug out my old electronics kit and I have this box full of different resistors and I'm going to just keep plugging them in and seeing how much resistance means full and how much resistance means empty so I'm grabbing these tiny little guys like this one right here and I'm wiring them in down here I'm just going to hold these on the connector there and have Bridger yell and tell me what the gauge is reading bridger's holding the camera right now I'm going to have him jump in the cab and yell out to me what the gauge is doing you're up Bridger turn the key on but don't start it and tell me what the gauge does right now that's all the way full how about now half okay what about now empty okay how about this half tank what do you have what does it show full tank okay I think we got it figured out one more what is this B I'm trying to calibrate the lar right now and there's some complicated instructions it's kind of like the game of operation cuz I have these little alligator clips attached to the thing and if they touch the wrong post it says it will damage the sensor I probably should have come up with a better setup for this but this is working I keep raising and lowering the sensor to mimic the full and position of the gas tank and then hitting these little buttons until I get just the right output in ohms on my meter here got a little volt meter hooked up if I can get this thing calibrated properly I'm going to take it over to the truck and see if I can hook it up and get my gauge to read high and low when I move the meter up and down when I hold the gauge close to the table that should represent a full gas tank if I lift it up high that should represent an empty gas tank like the gas is far away from my cender I think I've got this thing calibrated as close as as I can just holding it above the tabletop to try and indicate full and empty it's time to take it out to the truck we're going to attach this to the wires up in the tank and then I'm going to hold my hand different distances away so that would be like an empty tank like the fuel is really far this would be like a full tank like the fuel is really close so we're going to try this and we're going to see what happens to the gauge Bridger I'm going to yell to you when I'm ready to try it okay Bridger what do you got right there full what do you got right there empty I'm excited about this fuel gauge this thing is going to work all right I poured out all of that Degreaser and now it's time to put in the metal prep so I'm going to pour in the whole bottle because this is a really big tank and I'm going to Sosh it and do the exact same thing I emptied that tank out and then I rinsed it a couple times with water dumped all that out now I've got to get it totally dry before I dump in the sealer and it says you can use like a hair dryer or something but I'm just sticking mine outside in the sun all right it is a very nice sunny day out here and this thing is heating up fast I've only had it out here for like 20 minutes and I can barely keep my hand on it anymore that should cook out all the moisture this tank is completely dry now oh yeah we're going to be good I'm ready to figure out where the pump needs to go and where that fuel tank Center needs to go and I need to cut a couple of holes for those so I'm going to lay that out really quick and get the hole saw back out [Music] things are all laid out I'm about ready to cut my holes I double checked to make sure that big hole saw was just the right size for this pump one of the cool things about this pump is these little flanges right here let me show you those see that those little aluminum pieces will spin out when I tighten the bolts down they'll grab the edge of the tank and clamp down that gasket and seal nice and tight I'm going to start cutting I've got the holes in this tank all drilled out but I can feel these big Burrs on the inside here where I drilled these so I'm going to try and stuff this die grinder inside and see if I can polish that bottom surface so it'll seal really good when I attach that fuel sender okay that worked pretty good I was able to clean out the bottom side of these holes now I'm just going to vacuum this thing out in there so I get rid of all of the metal chips and the dust and everything that's been put in there then I'll show you what it looks like [Music] inside all right I vacuumed it out the best I could whatever metal dust is left in there is going to have to get taken care of by the filter or get glued down by the fuel tank sealer either way it should be fine you can see there's a lot of flash rust in there and that's what the Degreaser and the metal prep does it rusts that that surface really quick but that's okay cuz P stands for paint over rust that's exactly what it's made to do the tank is all clean now I just have to figure out some way to seal off these holes so that after I pour in the tank sealer I can Sosh everything around and coat all of those surfaces really really [Music] good it's finally time to put the sealer in I've got two cans of this fuel tank sealer because this is a really big tank I made a throwaway funnel because whatever this stuff gets on and dries on it's going to be there for a long time including me and you I'm going to pour this in here seal everything off really good and I'll get Bridger out here and we'll shake this thing up oh mess okay that's can number [Music] one okay okay we've got everything in this tank now we're just going to start shaking it we don't really need to like leave it for like a half hour an hour on each side this time we just have to get them coated and then drain everything down to one corner and then pour all the extra out the baffles will be the trickiest part we should just be able to set it on each side and they'll get coated so we'll just do our [Applause] [Music] best yeah good shot was that good yeah I can't really see what happen right in the middle if you're like perfect it was good to see some progress on the fuel tank it says in the instructions to weigh 96 hours that won't be an issue cuz I got some big projects that I'm going to jump on to for a few days then we'll get back to this finish it up and get it installed in the truck I also want to say thank you guys so much for supporting my channel I was a little nervous about dropping that last video but there was just an overwhelming flood of positive comments that came in I really appreciate your support and I just want to leave with a very heartfelt thanks for watching [Music]

Channel: Tom Tom's Shop

Views: 142,142

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Id: O4nulzCco0Q

Length: 24min 35sec (1475 seconds)

Published: Sun May 05 2024