Gas Thief or Gas Hog?

[casadejohnson]

I upgraded my 74 Bronco to a 23 gallon tank with auxillary 11 gallon long ago but I have still managed to run it out of gas because I have never had much luck keeping a working gas gauge in a bronco. The 66 is a new purchase so I'm still figuring out what works and what doesn't. I think this truck has been driven more in the week I've had it than it has in the last 10 years. The guy I got it from had visions of restoring it but it never happened. He owned it for 4 years and told me has driven it less than 10 mile in that time. He was not a Bronco expert by any stretch of the imagination. He had no idea that it rolled off the assembly line as a roadster and was converted to a half cab years ago. Before that I saw it parked on the other side of town for several years and it never moved that I saw. I would have dumped gas in the carb but a previous owner lost the wing nuts on the air filter/ oil bath and replaced them with nuts. I had no tools so getting to the carb to poor in fuel was not really an option. I'm sure now that somebody stole some gas because it happened to three other guys at work on the same day. All of our vehicles were parked next to each other and were behind the building where they are not seen to passers by. The only good thing is that while trying to get it started I discovered a couple other problems that I can get taken care of now rather than on the side of the road later. First, I was cranking on it in the dark so I was able to see that I have a crack in my distributor. Second, I'm getting an arc from the #1 cylinder spark plug to the engine. Third, I now own a brand new gas can! Finding problems may not seem like a good thing but I'm trying to get the bugs worked out so I look at it as a positive discovery. While I'm in there, I think I'll get rid of the points and do an electronic ignition of some sort. I also have to get the fuel gauge working. It worked for about 20 minutes today but when I shut it off and restarted it it stopped working again. I belive its just a bad insterment cluster voltage regulator and I have couple spares I grabbed at the junk yard that i can try.