[Bad Rat]

I just recently got my 69 Bonneville back on the road, but the fuel gage wants to stay on 1/4 full and the dash lights don't come on at all, turn signals work , and headlights work fine,
I have replaced all the fuses, but no change,
when the painter took off the rear bumper, they forgot to dis connect the lisence plate light and just broke the wire, I spliced that and it works,,
the lisence lite and fuel gage wire both come from under the car at the same location, but the fuel gage wire seems to be ok,,
The car set for probably 5-6 years, and didn't have hardly any gas in it,, if any,
I am wondering if maybe the ethenol might have coroded the sending unit,
I hate the thought of having to take that HUGE battle ship sized gas tank out,,
gonna check the grounds for every thing today,, but those were never disturbed and worked fine before, but all it takes is one tiny wire loose to cause a huge headache,,,
any ideas ???

[LATECH]

Can you even see the sending unit from underneath?
You should be able to ground the sender wire for the gauge and the gauge should zero out , (or read empty) . If you unhook it the gauge will go over the full mark a ways.
Maybe you can check those 2 things. If you determine the sender is a problem, it might be stuck. You could pound on the tank with you fist or a rubber hammer, maybe you can get some action from it that way.
If not , the gauge may need some attention. I can help a little on that if need be.

[LATECH]

The dash lights ground through the rehostat on the headlight switch ( Brightness/ dimmer control ) it may have a bad spot (open circuit) causing the issue.
You could pull the headlight switch and check the ground there, as well as the rehostat (like a variable resistor or potentiometer , only handles higher voltage/current)

[jdhemin]

On the older cars the dash lights are tied with the tailights so if the dash lights are not working nether is your tailights....Your fuse to fix this would either be tailights or interier lights and check your ground to the gas tank before you do anything drastic... jdhemin