Aviate,
Thanks for the excellent photo' of Spirit of St Louis's panel.
It looks like a plumber's nightmare ( and during a low period I used my aircraft / general engineering training to work on plumbing ! ) but I notice there are no lables on the fuel cocks.
This would be spiffing, as the aircraft was only built for one pilot, but for the fatigue factor.
I'm not surprised he had problems with tank selection en route...