Brad W

On my 82 the gas idiot light stays on no matter what the fuel level reads. I haven’t had a chance to look in to this, but does anybody know what the problem is before I start tracking down the culprit of this new gremlin?
Thanks

Problem solved- cooroded conectors. Thanks to all.

Imo000

Check the sending unit and the connector located at the top of the gas tank. It’s very easy to access it. Just remove the rubber plug located in the right side of the trunk. Remove the connector and clean the poles. The ground connector pin (brown wire) is made of steel and is prone for corrosion. The other two are stainless so corrosion is not an issue. However clean all of them with steel wool.
If this doesn’t work, then remove the retaining ring and the wire connector from the sending unit. The sending unit will then easily slide out of the gas tank. Now with the unit out, re connect the wires and move the float by hand. See if this makes the light go out. It’s possible that the reserve fuel level switch is stuck in the ON position.

Brad W

Will do. The gauge never gives an exact reading, either up or down and never reads full. So maybe I need to look at a new sending unit. Is there any way to overhaul this?

Imo000

There is a way to adjust the sending unit, but usualy the problem is the electric connection between the unit and the connector. Mine had a corroded ground pin that made the gage only work on occasion. Even then it would not go past the ¾ mark. Once I cleaned it all up the gage started to work just as is should. So give the cleaning of the connector a go and see if that fixes the gage.

cdbtx

If none of the above works.. the Yellow/black wire on the sender is the wire that controls the Low Fuel lamp. Remove this from the sender and see if the lamps goes out.. If not, there's a ground on the wire between the sender and the (Central Warning Unit) or lamp. The fuel gauge sensor is pretty sensitive so it doesn't take much corrosion to affect the gauge reading

SharkSkin

There is a circuit that closes when the fuel is low and it sounds like you have a short in that circuit. The pic below shows what the actual contacts look like, more info here.