I'm new to the forum here and my better half has a completely restored 61 Lancer 770 with a 225, the car looks great and whoever restored it did a good job, they just neglected the motor and mechanical items on the car.

First question, is the sender for the fuel in the tank or somewhere more readily available?

The gauge does not work at all, I checked the wiring and everything looks good, therefore I'm guessing its the sender. Thanks in advance.

The sender is in the tank. You can get to it from the passenger side rear wheelwell. Loosen the tank strap and let the tank drop down a liitle bit then you can use a brass punch to loosen the lock ring. Before you do that though, I would check out all the wiring from the gauge back and also be sure the ground strap is intact and making good contact. The ground strap just clips over the fuel line to bridge the rubber hose. If it is missing or broken, the sender won't be able to send.

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David Kight
'62 Valiant Signet, White
'98 Dodge Dakota
'06 Jeep Liberty

Growing older is unavoidable but growing up is strictly optional.

Welcome on the board.

The '60-'62 Valiant/Lancer sender is now being reproduced in stainless steel (yay) in China (boo). I've got the manufacturer's catalogue buried somewhere in my office. I'll try and dig it up so I can re-find the North American distribution situation.

But, before you spend for a new sender, there are a few other things to check. Does the engine temperature gauge work? If both the fuel and temp gauges are dead, that suggests the instrument cluster voltage regulator is faulty. It is built into the temperature gauge, and is a thermo-electric device similar in construction to an ordinary turn signal flasher. If yours has failed, the "official" fix is to replace the gauge assembly, but the better fix is to build and retrofit a solid-state regulator as described here (which also contains a good explanation of how the original system works). If you're not electrically handy, you can buy such an electronic unit ready-made here. Installation in cars like yours is slightly more involved than installation in '66-up cars that have the original instrument voltage regulator mounted externally, but it's not super-difficult.

If the temp gauge does work and only the fuel gauge is dead, perhaps the sender itself is fine but its float has filled up with gasoline and sunk, causing the sender to send "empty" no matter how much fuel's in the tank. You can in this case replace just the float (and, please, while you're in there, the filter "sock" on the end of the uptake pipe), see here.

Of course, it's also possible the sender, wiring, and instrument voltage regulator are fine and the gauge itself is toast, in which case you'll need a replacement. I see them go by on eBay from time to time.

These '61s have essentially no circuit protection. Very few fuses, no main-circuit electrical protection, etc. You will want to add circuit protection so that a minor electrical issue doesn't burn down the car. See this thread for info.

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一期一会
Too many people who were born on third base actually believe they've hit a triple.