Fuel guage short on 1998 Cherokee Sport Help D:

aPanzerIV

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My mom bought a 1998 Jeep Cherokee Sport at an auction a few months ago. It's had a problem with the fuel guage not working, always showing as empty, but when the fuel is low, the low fuel light will turn on. We swapped the idiot lights instrument panel for the full guage panel, which of course required me to unplug the battery. Upon plugging in the battery again, the guage worked for about 5 seconds when I turned the car on. After putting everything back togehter, unplugging and replugging the battery, it worked for another 5 seconds, then went back to empty.

Checked both fuse boxes, everything was good. If it was the floater in the tank, it would always show empty regardless. I'm thinking its a short with the sending unit. Any help with this?
 
When you installed the gauges did you rewire the jeep to use the gauges or did you just swap them out ? You can't just throw in a set of gauges on a digital display system.
The computer reads the signal it gets from the fuel level sensor and when it reaches a certain value the computer turns on the low fuel light. To my way of thinking that would eliminate the fuel level sensor. Sounds more like the computer has a fault.
Have you had it put on a diag machine?
 
When you installed the gauges did you rewire the jeep to use the gauges or did you just swap them out ? You can't just throw in a set of gauges on a digital display system.
The computer reads the signal it gets from the fuel level sensor and when it reaches a certain value the computer turns on the low fuel light. To my way of thinking that would eliminate the fuel level sensor. Sounds more like the computer has a fault.
Have you had it put on a diag machine?

No, we just got the car. I've read up on replacing this instument set before I did it, and two of the guages should have stopped working after the panel swap (oil and temp shoud bug out due to differnt sending units for each panel), but they didn't so I'm thinking someone did a cheap repair with the idiot lights panel. Some people said adding an extra ground wire to the sending unit, not replacing the unit itself, has fixed the problem.
 
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