so I notice the gas gauge doesn't seem to be reading correct, do I pop out the y clip from the sender end, and put the fluke to it. says its got some juice in it. fluctuates when I rock the car. So I figure the gauge is the bad guy. so I pop the probes on the gauge side, and hit the ohm meter at 88 something. is this right? I thought it was supposed to be 0-60 ohms for the meter...am I doing something wrong?

Typically GM sending units are 0-90 Ohms.

This post has a good description on checking the gauge:

http://www.chevelles.com/forums/showthread.php?t=53519

Ivan

It might be as simple as a bad ground at the sending unit. Probably the quickest and easiest place to start. I had issues with the gas gauge on my '70 Elky and that was the fix. There's a TON of information on gauge problems that has been posted previously so do a search. There's a wealth of information at your fingertips.

Good luck.

It may be as simple as someone bending the float arm on install of sender. It can sometimes be a pain to snake that whole assembly in there. GM gauges of that year are 0-90 ohms resistance. so you can test the gauge with resistors to see if its callibrated correctly. If you unplug the signal wire while the power line is hooked up it should go past full. If you ground the signal line it should go past empty. If you remove the sender you can read its resistance also while moving it up and down. Dunno how far car is apart tho.
Bill

Cool, thanks guys for the assistance. Last night I tried to search within the forum for the question I asked, but the search button wasn't working right with my PDA.

I checked everything, and it all appears that the actual gauge is bad.