not necessarily. even with less voltage, that path of least resistance to ground the gauge will still peg. The replacement sender was checked before it was sent out. IS the boot connector tight? or the wire cracked at the boot.
The boot is tight and the connection is clean....the wire appears to be in good shape...the exposed part in the trunk/underneath the car are soft and flexible yet.
I would think that if the wire had a break or a short to ground it wouldnt work "fine" (as far as level) after tweaking the float arm...the dead spots I had in the last one were not random, they were in the same spot every time indicating a problem with the sender...they were in the same spots every tank. A wiring issue wouldnt cause that.
I hooked the last (and this) sender up to the wiring while out of the gas tank and at the empty stop on it , the gauge read empty...at the full stop it read "full". Only once it was in the tank did the level not show right, indicating to me that it is a calibration issue with the sender to the level of gas in the tank more than anything else.
Bench testing showed the proper ohms at the top and bottom of the scale, going by what others have posted as far as the proper readings. The dead spots were small enough where my shaky hand could not pick them up while cycling the arm through the range and watching the ohms. Only once installed were the two dead spots seen. On the rock auto sender I had tried, the deads spots were much bigger and easier to find.
Can I ask how the sender was tested? And was it tested for dead spots, level or both?