My 69 Camaro hasn't had a working gas guage since I bought it. The previous owner said it hadn't worked since he had it, although he replaced the sender, along with a rusty tank. I changed it to an in dash tach, requiring a center mounted guage which I bought new. It still doesn't work. Today I dropped the tank and checked that the sender had the plug on wire on and also a ground wire intact. After pulling the guage from the dash and checking the harness, I found that it had 12V to the red, but the black wire didn't show ground. When hooking a ground to that terminal the needle goes to approx 3 oclock. The E to F positions on this guage face only occupy approx from 10 to 2, so the position is way off the scale. I don't know how to check the sender with an Ohm meter, or how to check the guage at all, but feel either the guage or the sender is bad although both are new. Any idea's?

This is how my '73 Chilton's shows the circuit.

Fuel gauge has three posts, one of them is connected to ground (20 B(rown)), same as to gauge lamp return.

Another post to a tie point (20 P(ink)), same as supply(12 V) for warning lights, GEN<OIL< HOT.

The last post to sending unit, 20 T(an)). Fuel sender to ground, black.

I would start at gas gauge, measure voltage from 20 tan to ground with fuel sender unplugged at tank, should show 12volts on meter to ground. Go to tank, measure same there at 20 tan. Make sure sender unit on tank has a GOOD ground attached.

Take meter and ohm out sending unit. The limits are 0-90 ohms, I believe FULL = 0 ohms, EMPTY = 90 ohms, I could be mistaken.

All in all, the sending unit in tank is providing the current for the meter to indicate the fuel level, must have a complete path to ground from the third post of gauge, depending upon fuel level in tank.

Hope this helps, I'm sure others will chime in here.

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Everett 68/350/PG/11.90/115mph

Hey Solid...
I was working on the same thing last night. My gauge reads full plus 1/4 when I top off the tank, but 1/4 when empty. I grounded the connector in the trunk, 20 T, and the gauge went to "E". Make sure you ground the car end, not the tank end, ignition "ON". I suspect my gauge is good. I cleaned the ground connection. This is the wire that comes from the sender, but attaches with a sheetmetal screw just ahead of the tank. The connection was a but rusty, but did not seem to change the position of the needle. I will attampt to re-do and then if all else fails, replace the sender. In summary...ground the car 20T connector, gauge goes to E. Good Luck.

[This message has been edited by ChuckD (edited 08-12-2002).]

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[This message has been edited by gheatly (edited 08-13-2002).]

I have the same problem. I converted to a center fuel gauge. I replaced the in-tank sender when I replaced the gas tank. I also cleaned the grounding area and installed a new star washer to make sure the connection was good.

The needle fell off the gas gauge during shipping, so I filled the car up and put the needle exactly on the "F" before I finalized the gauge installation. When I fill the tank up, the needle goes to F, but when the needle is on "E", I have about 1/3 of a tank left. Oh well, at least the gauge is consistently wrong, so I do know how much gas I have.

A center fuel gauge looks GREAT in the '69 dash.