hello all, I have a 1989 camaro RS v8 TBI 4 speed auto tranny... anywho... the fuel gauge is stuck on full and will never move. I took the face off and pushed the gauge all the way down to "E", then when I started the car it went all the way back up. I figured I had a full tank, but I have been driving this car for nearly a week without putting any gas in it. I KNOW ITS NOT FULL. whats the problem? thanx n advanced.

The float affixed to your fuel pump in your gas tank is stuck.

It tells the dash you ALWAYS have a full tank.


You have to drop the tank, PB Blast/WD40 the float, get it to drop down.

And your golden.


Or you could just live with it.

It's possible that the sender is bad,and is reading 90 ohms all the time,which it does with a full tank.Also check for continuity between the sender and the gauge,I think if you have lost continuity,it will also read at 90 ohms.Should be a tan wire.Good luck.

Before you go dropping tanks and performing all kinds of crazy unnecessary labor, DIAGNOSE it.
You can climb under the gas tank (if your car is stock 4WD height, it's easy), reach above and front of the differential and unpllug the 3-prong connector on the backseat wall.
Then take a paperclip and insert it in the connector half on the wall, in the two slots where the pink and black wires were (check the other half of the connector for wire color reference).
Turn the key on and check the gauge. If it reads empty, your gauge is good and so is the wiring fwd of the tank. If not, you have either a gauge or wiring problem. And you can take it from there.

Hope this helps.
Lou

thankyou everyone for all ur input. I will diagnose the problem and post the results shortly

did you find the problem with the fuel gauge was it a open circuit bad sending unit or what i got the same problem and it sucks running out of gas happen to me twice please reply your results or if any or if u havnt repaired it thanks buddy

It seems to happen alot. Mine is full all the time. I'm going to check it electronically first. I understand if the float is stuck it will read full all the time.

One thing I haven't seen on here is a final conclusion. So lets see if I have this right.

Do the paperclip test for the guage. If guage drops to empty, then it's either the float or sending unit. Or is it just the float? Or it could be wiring to float/sending unit?

Any case beyond guage or ground being bad you would have to drop tank to correct it.

Not a wiring genius either but if I take my multimeter and get 90 ohm reading then it means what?

Not afraid, just fixing other things first and 1st time 3rd gen owner.

Please reply to above post. Of the people who had this and fixed it. What was it? Which happened the most, float, ground, guage or what.

I'm justing getting into this car and most of the time vehicles have repeatable problems. Just trying to work smart.

ive got the same exact prblem

I have the same problem also I did check the wiring and I used the paper clip and it went empty if I have to drop the tank what is the easiest way to do so.

im having the same exact problem with my firebird

you gotta pull the rear end to drop the tank sorry to break the bad news it really sucks but thats the way man i got the same issue with my iroc and its annoying

The way the fuel gauge works is some what like a game of electrical tug of war. Without getting into too much detail on that basically how it works is as the resistance increases so does your fuel level according to the gauge and vice verse. What 99.9% of the time causes your issue is an open circuit. This makes scene because an open circuit is essentially infinite resistance which would correspond to an infinitely high fuel reading (pegged). The opposite would be shorting it to ground with the paperclip trick mentioned earlier makes the resistance 0 and the fuel level should also read 0 indicating the gauge itself works. To troubleshoot this I would start at the gauge itself. I would remove the fuel gauge and measure the resistance to ground of the contact that connects to the fuel level sensor. Now your meter could show a multitude of things or just nothing at all. If the meter is unresponsive this means you have an open circuit and will need to track it back. Could be a bad connection a broken wire bad sender ect. If you get any resistance withing the normal range of the sensor (including 90 ohms) it means that either the gauge itself has an open circuit internally, a bad connection from the dash to the gauge itself, or in case of some constant high reading around 90 the sensor may be just jammed up.

ok i gotta question idk how to start a thred on here ive been on this website for yrs and just became a member im on my 4th 3rd gen now and i got a used msd 6al box and idk wtf to hook the white wire up to??? its the single wire for timing excessory to tell the box to spark so my damn car will start i got it hooked to the battery and to the coil and got a great key on power and this is the last step and i need help please some one help me im lost as hell and the summit tech line guy told me its not used on my car well um hey dumbass how does my pick up coil tell it to fire if its got no signal lol

I dont mean to sound like a prick but the new thread button is like the Reply button on and subject list and everything. But I dont know bout you prob but SEARCH IS YOUR BEST FRIEND its in the top bar if you did not know. I wish I could help you on that. But try to keep the post on topic.

sorry I stopped posting guys. I'm the OP, I never fixed my gauge problem. I'm in the process of taking everything out and prepping for a LSx swap.

so i just did what bigbadlou said and when i inserted the paper clip into the two slots my gauge dropped even farther past full. what does this mean? what should i check next

im not sure if any of yall are still around since this is an older thread but any ways, my gas gauge stays pointed past full most of the time, when i bought the car to drive it home i said hey, i got a full tank. but after 2 miles the needle started shaking around E and another mile or so later the car shut down. so, stays past full untill it runs completely out. any ideas?

Yes you have same problem as me. Your fuel sending unit is bad. You need to replace that and you might as well change your fuel pump since you have to drop the tank I believe

me to, in my 87 TA