Fuel gauge reading ????'s

[dickeymoore]

I shook the cluster nothing happened

 

[TURNA]

it's broke then

 

[dickeymoore]

The gauge or sending unit If I drive it for a couple of days the gauge will move towards empty

 

[fleming442]

The gauge or sending unit If I drive it for a couple of days the gauge will move towards empty

Don't you wish it was that easy?

Check the ground on the sender. Have a friend watch the gauge while you put a test light on the pink wire to see if the gauge moves. Or, keep an eye on the odometer......

 

[dedub]

Your sending unit is a mechanical device that sits inside the tank. Similar to the float inside almost all toilets. As fuel is added, this raises the float. That unit is nothing more than a variable resistor that reads from 0 ohms when it's at it's lowest, to 90 ohms at it's highest. Your car is 40 years old like my Elcamino…. I just pulled mine out and it didn't look so well. It's possible that the unit is not raising all the way up due to corrosion, wear and tear, ect...
SO...…. the sending unit passes the resistance difference to the gauge cluster thus moving the needle. Like popeye said, it *could be the instrument cluster and if I was a betting man, the mechanical spring mechanism is *probably getting stuck.
It's going to be either of those two.....

 

[dickeymoore]

Okay Thanks

 

[fleming442]

GM sending units are usually funky, anyway. You fill up, drive 100 miles, then it comes off F. Then, 150 miles later, you knockin on E.

 

[melloelky]

GM sending units are usually funky, anyway. You fill up, drive 100 miles, then it comes off F. Then, 150 miles later, you knockin on E.