first let me say that I am new to group, and just took my sons 84 camaro back. have fixed several small things, and now am working on fuel guage. shows full all the time, so i unplugged wires from fuel tank, and no change. took inst. cluster face off, and can move needle by hand, so know it is not stuck. has a habit of dead battery overnight, so tonight i am going to unhook batt. and see if needle moves back down. any one have any suggestions?

 

Busted gas gage.....

 

Has some one done some rewiring? Where you unplugged the wires at the tank, check the harness signal wire (tan??) for continuity to ground.

 

thanks for the replies! to my knowledge, no wireing work done. guage has worked fine the first year or two, then recently shows full all the time. i unplugged wires from tank, and still full. took face off inst panel, and with key on, moved needle by hand to E, then turned key off. needle stayed on E until turned key on again, then went back to F. this is with being unhooked from tank. have noticed a week battery overnight, so tonight i am going to unhook batt, killing all power to everything, and see if it goes back to E. if it does, then possibly looking for short in wiring between inst. panel and tank. what do you think?

 

have u tried unplugging the connector at the tank and grounding the signal wire? i think if the gauge is working properly it should go from one extreme to another. so u said it stays full when unplugged, try grounding it and seeing if the gauge moves.

 

It would go to full when its completely grounded. The gauge moves to full so you know its getting power. If you go to the plug at the tank and test the harness and the signal wire is grounding then you know the gauge is getting full ground from another source.

 

I had an old Plymouth that did the same thing. Always stuck on 3/4. Turned out to be the sending unit in the tank. One bit of advice-if you replace the sending unit in the tank, make sure you seal it back up again with Hylomar or a simliar sealant. If not, every time you top off the tank shes gonna leak a bit from the sending unit.Smelly n messy. Good luck. Gas guage is one of those things you really like to have working, especially on a car that may be getting low teens for mileage.

And one more thing....if you do replace the sending unit, dont be a cheap bastage. Spend the extra 10 dollars on the pick up sock. (in tank filter) ...........dont ask...........

 

If you reread his post he unplugged the wires there thus loosing the ground that the sending unit works off of.
And what are you doing giving advise Scott??? Next you gonna tell em to take a hammer to the dash and beat the crap out of it for the heck of it?

 

Mike, go play with your friends. The adults are trying to have a conversation......[8D]