Thanks for sharing your knowledge. 

After posting my 63-66 big car fuel tank build, I realized that the fuel sending unit info would come in handy for others. I used a universal sending unit and mount, but you can use the movement of a universal to repair your original. You just need a universal sending unit with an adjustable height movement.

First, make sure your original is toast. Connect an ohm meter to the wire stud and to the round disc that goes on the tank. Positive should be on stud, disc is ground. Often a unit doesn't work because the tank isn't grounded well to the body. With a good ground you should see about 10 ohms with the float arm up in the full position, 73 ohms in the empty position. It doesn't matter if you're 1-2 ohms off, like in the 8-75 ohm range. While the senders are typically listed as 10-73 (empty to full), some of the AMC TSMs list 9 ohms as empty. The units will got a few ohms =/- the listed range. If you get a steady increase/decrease between 10 and 73 ohms (easiest to see on an old analog meter) the unit is fine. You may need to sand the disc or pickup tub a bit to get a good ground. Instead of trying to ground the tank, I usually sand near the base of the pickup tube on the outside side of the disc, strip about an inch from a length of black wire, wrap that around the sanded portion, and solder it on. terminate the other end of the wire with a screw terminal and find a spot for a sheet metal screw to the body. I usually use the metal piece in front of the tank that the straps hook into.

If your sending unit read correctly with the ohm meter and the gauge doesn't work, it's time to test the gauge. Easy to do -- just ground the sending unit wire at the tank -- pull the wire off the sending unit and get a good ground somewhere. The gauge should shoot up to past full (less than 9-10 ohms -- 0 ohms, actually). If it doesn't move, you either don't have a good ground (try a couple different spots, and make sure you have bare metal), the wire between the gauge and tank is bad, or the gauge is bad. The next step is to pull the instrument panel, find the gauge ground terminal, and ground it there. The panel connector has to be on to get power to the gauge. The ground varies by model, so I'll not go into detail on that -- you'll need a TSM. Remember, there are at least two connectors between the gauge and sending unit. The first is the connector to the instrument cluster. Then there is usually a connector under (or near) the kick panel on the driver's side. You may have to trace the sending unit wire under the car to find the kick-panel connector. You might find a break in the wire along the way.

Another common issue is the power source for the old style resistance gauge (up to 1977,  except for up to 78 Matador and 80 Pacer). These are simple resistance type gauges and units and use a 5V power source. Power can be from a solid state 5V regulator or from the stock bi-metal regulator, which produces an average of 5V by switching rapidly on and off. TomJ has a great write-up on using a solid state regulator in place of the original bi-metal unit here: https://www.sr-ix.com/AMC/dashreg/index.html

Assuming the sending unit is bad but the gauge and wire good (or repaired), you have a few options:

1. Get a repro or NOS unit from an AMC vendor. Great, if they have one for your car, and it's not cost prohibitive. The sending unit is something that will never be seen or noticed until pulled from the tank as long as the gauge functions correctly. You might not want to spend a lot on it, save the money for noticeable things even on a 100% restoration.

2. Get a similar unit for another car. This takes some research. Many Ford and Chrysler units are almost the same. Using one of these may take some bending of the pickup tube and/or float arm. You really just need one with a disc big enough to make it work. The following used the same ohm range sending units.

240-33 ohms (TSM lists as 248-31, but these work fine):

AMC 1978-88 (78 Matador and 78-80 Pacer use the older style 10-73 units)