I have seen this problem on the forums before, but I have not seen a solution yet. The guage spends most of the time on empty or full , some times it will register in between. I have replaced the sending unit in the tank. Anybody heard of a fix?
togojc

 

My 98 is staying on E,, it worked here and there and then took a dump..Any help?

 

mine 1998 doesnt do anything that bad. but it does seem to jump around alot. it s like it cant make up its mind on how much gas it has.

 

after fueling the gas gauge stayed on empty and the estimated miles to travel stayed on zero. Went back to the gas station to be sure their pump wasn't in error. It wasn't. Went to nearby ford garage, they verified our fuel tank was full. Continued our trip, gauge slowly returned to correct reading (full) This was really crazy.

 

It will do that if you leave the key on while fueling. It takes quite a while to climb to full, too. I assume this is some kind of smoothing circuit to prevent the needle bouncing around as the fuel sloshes?

 

Maybe loose/dirty connection in the instrument cluster? The gauges connect with pins that go through spring terminal type sockets in the cluster PC board.

You could try this: pull the board off the back, clean the pins and sockets with contact cleaner and/or a pencil eraser, and re-assemble. Look for the "intermittent odometer fix" thread for cluster R&R and pics.

 

Mine did the same the other day. After a full tank, it still read 1/8 tank. I figured that the -12* temp was to blame. Put the truck in the garage that night and the next day it read Full.

I'm guessing it froze in that position.