ok, I've been doing some reading on why the gauge doesn't work. I have a brand new sender (fullish tank i'm getting 91 ohms) so I pulled the fuel gauge out of the car. I did a test where you ground the ground terminal and put 12 volts to the 12 volt terminal and nothing to the sender terminal. I read that when doing this test the gauge should go to empty, but in fact mine went the opposite direction. It went way past the full mark.

any insight or suggestions would be appreciated

 

well, I guess I read some wrong info because after more reading I see that if you don't hook up the sender wire the gauge will go way past full, which mines does. So other than fixing the broken prongs on the circuit board I think i'm good to go

 

Yes, one side of the gauge gets a constant 12v the sender side is providing various degrees of ground based on fuel level.

 

ok, when I removed the fuel gauge and unplugged the harness I noticed a few of the terminals were stuck in the plug or just missing. So there is my problem, how do I fix it...

First all the terminals were loose so I removed them all. Then I found some little machine screws of the same basic size and shape. I used nuts to hold them securely and re-assembled the gauge

 

The only thing I would do different in hind sight is file a point onto the tip of each screw to help align them into the plug. But never the less the harness plugged in securely and now the gauge lights and the fuel gauge are working...

 

Very nice work.

 

Thanks for the tip. My fuel gauge on my 71 442 was reading way past full, so that meant the gauge was getting power. So I went under the trunk disconnected the tan wire leading to the sending unit. I then grounded the tan wire. That caused the fuel gauge to read empty and that proved my problem was the sending unit.