fuel gauge

[MMike]

Hi.... Yesterday I ran my 1992 180 (outboard bow rider) for the first time. All seems well. The fuel gauge seems a bit wonky.  As I understand it, the fuel tank is a little more than 100L.  When I was done, the gauge read nearly empty. At the gas station, I only got 50L into it and..then proceeded to spray fuel everywhere (yes... rookie mistake....all of my previous boats had remote tanks). Sufficed to say it wasn't empty.
 
Also when I was running, the needle would bounce with the boat, and it fluctuate more than 1/4 tank.
 
I guess my question is, how accurate can  I expect the fuel gauge to be? Or is my sender defective. I don't want to start tearing into things only to find out that this is about as good as it gets.... As I said, this is my first experience with a built-in tank...
 
Thanks.....

[JimEsq]

Did you ever get an answer to this?  Mine is doing exactly the same thing.

[Jordan_G_]

It is most likely a bad sending unit to the fuel gauge. On my 1992 200BR, the float for the sending unit is cork and was filled with bad fuel.  The cork turned to dead weight and the gauge stopped working. Had a new sending unit put in and the fuel gauge now works like a charm. The gauge does jump around a bit while underway, but shouldn't be all over the place.