Filling up and overflowing

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I’m wonduring if it is typical to have the vent tube of the King Seely fuel gauge sending unit overflow when filling the tank of my ’35 all the way. I was slowly filling the tank completely for the first time to check for leaks. The KS gauge reacts so slowly that it was lagging 5 gallons behind my slow fill rate (I was using the electric pump on my Packard to fill the Pierce and took around 45 minutes).  Suddenly the fill pipe was full and next thing I knew I had gas spilling from the right side of the tank. I thought at first I had a big leak in the tank, but it was the top of the vent tube of the KS sending unit flowing fuel.

Since the vent tube is inside the KS dome with a tiny hole for fuel to enter it is going to slow down how fast the fuel can flow up the vent. The top of the filler neck is above the vent, so it seems that once the filler neck fills with fuel it is inevitable that it is going to slowly drain out the KS vent and leave a lot of gas on the ground.

Perhaps it doesn’t happen if filling at the normal fast rate at a gas station? Or maybe the overflow tube inside the filler neck overflows inside the neck as a signal to stop?

 

 

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