Wednesday, June 12, 2019

Lister Generator Fuel Dipstick

The fuel tank on my Lister generator has a fuel gauge sender but no gauge is present on the generator. Turning to that age-old standby, the dipstick, I decided I'd make one out of a steel rod. A rusty steel rod to be more precise.

I measured the fuel tank length and width, then figured out how many inches there were per gallon of fuel, and came up with roughly 1 inch per gallon. Actually, it's 1.056 inches per gallon to be exact, and although I could have used a ruler to get an approximate fuel level, I decided on the more exact route. Taking the 1.056 number, I get 0.264 inches per 1/4 gallon. So I marked the rusty rod in 0.264-inch increments on the lathe, using a dial indicator on the lathe carriage, as shown below.

Below is another shot of the finished rod (marked to 7 gallons) but it now has been dipped into the tank and is showing 3-3/4 gallons of fuel, which is about half a tank. The rust actually makes the fuel level stand out better than if the rod were shiny steel. Believe it or not, I left the rod rusty for that purpose.

Below are a couple photos of the home-built tank that the previous owner made. He also made the framework that the generator is mounted to.


The bottom frame the generator is sitting on is just a huge piece of channel iron with four feet welded to it.

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