Gas Gauge Going?

In my 1988 Olds Cutlass Cierra Broughm I noticed the other day that the gas gauge was flopping around even though I was on a straight, smooth road. I'm at a whopping 156,600K original miles.

Yesterday, after getting gas, the gauge was completely parallel to the dashboard- as in way over full. This morning it's back to normal, just below full where I would have expected it to be.

Potentially loose cable or another problem on the horizon? If it's the cable, is it located somewhere user-accessable where it can be tightened?

i have the same problem on my 86 ciera, its pegged past full permenently, im just going to go out and get a used gas guage from a wrecking yard.

Hey - I had the same problem with my '87 cutlass supreme......after carefully disassembling the dash to get to the fuel gauge, i was able to pull it directly off of the main dash panel. it was held in place by 3 metal prongs, if you will, and one of the prongs wasn't making good contact with the guage. this is kind of tough to explain, and it's been about 6 months since i've done it, so i can't remember exactly how it all looked. but, this bad connection explained why my gauge sometimes worked, and the rest of the time read way past full. so, after some quick work with a small piece of tie-wire, all prongs now make full contact with the gauge, and i haven't had any problems since.

basically, in my case, i just did some exploring which saved me money because the gauge still worked, it just wasn't fully connected. hope this helps, and good luck if you start tearing into your dash!