General Maintenance & Repairs - fuel level guage stopped working

My car is a 2000 trans am, has about 120,000miles on it.

My fuel gauge worked fine last year. I pulled the car out of storage this spring and the gauge did not work. It stayed at empty. I took the car out for a drive, and after about 10min it started to slowly rise until it was on full (took about another 10min to get to "F"). I thought it was fine then, but a few days later when I drove the car it did the same thing again. It would be at empty and the over time as I drove it would go up to the actual level of fuel. So I pulled out the pump, cleaned the contacts on the senor to see if that fixed it. With the pump unplugged I would turn the car on, and it would jump to where ever I had the senor level at, but then would not change from that position until I turned the car off and then back on. Well now it won't come off "E" at all. When I first turn the key you can see it jumps a little like it wants to do something, then just falls back down. I bought a new sensor off of ebay and just plugged it in, and it did not solve the problem at all.

Does anyone have any ideas or can point me in the right direction?

Check for a short somewhere along the fuel level sensor wires path....Maybe that's the issue...???

I would say bad sender.

Talk to the dealer about the can of the GM fuel system cleaner that is supposed to correct the condition due to fuel additives/corrosion issues. Some brands of fuel cause corrosion in there giving erratic readings. GM put out a service bulletin re this (for all their products) after the switcth to non mercury switches, I think. Worth a try IMO if fuses/electrical is ruled out first. Think of what could have occurred while the car was in storage... (corrosion?)

Check for a short somewhere along the fuel level sensor wires path....Maybe that's the issue...???

Thats my next course of action. I am just going to start moving the wire around and stuff and see if it suddenly starts working and try to track down the short/broke wire.

Did this issue ever get resolved for you? My car was sitting for an extended time and the same thing happened to me -- the fuel gauge always shows empty. I just dropped my car off at the dealer and I'm trying to get an idea of what to expect. Thanks in advance for any info you can provide!