Drove my '74 Cutlass Supreme on a 1300 mile trip. Got some bad gas in Ohio. Decided with over half a million miles on this car, and the tank having never been dropped, I would change the tank, and fuel pickup/ sending unit. Sock had came off old pickup. Anyways, everything went fine until today when I ran out of gas, while it was showing 1/8 tank. Used to actually drop to E and stay there for a bit . Never ran out of fuel before. The sending unit came from OPGI. Have any of you experienced this? Could I add a resistor inline to correct the gauge, or should I just get a new sock for the old one and reinstall it? Thanks for any input.

 

Why let the car get that low on gas in the first place?

 

I was actually going to a gas station when it ran out. I was stuck on a bridge in traffic for a half hour. But I have driven this car for decades and it never ran out while showing 1/8 of a tank. So there is an issue with the new sending unit. Just curious if anyone else has ran across this .

 

I know some fuel sender units have a different Ohm rating than others.
Not sure which one you need.

But usually the reading is way off.

 

All 1965-newer GM sending units are 0-90 ohm. The more likely problem is that the arm with the float is slightly bent out of position.

 

I checked the ohms of the sender with the brown wire in the trunk, after filling it, it was 93 ohms. May need some adjustment on the float, which means I have to take the tank back out. I'll wait until I run some gas out.

 

My 55 will run out of gas at 1/8 tank indicated. I've never run out of gas in 20 plus years because I always ran on the top half until I stretched it one day on a Montana vacation trip and found out that 1/8 is empty. I thought I had a fuel pump issue... not so. Cost a tow, and half a day vacation and a rental car. Consider Youssef lucky that you received such an inexpensive learning experience. I still haven't fixed this problem on my car, but I no longer run out of gas because of the gain of nonage I received on that trip.