my gas gauge is always reading FULL (69 bird) I disonnected the wire in the trunk and with the key on grounded it and watched the gauge. The gauge went to E. Is my problem the gauge or sending unit?

Your dash gauge is okay because it goes to E when you ground the sender circuit. When the sender circuit is open, the gauge will actually read beyond full.

So you have an open circuit in the sender circuit or the sender is bad. An open circuit can be caused by loss of the ground connection or a problem in the wiring or associated connectors. To troubleshoot this, try unplugging the wire right at the sender and jumper it to ground. If the gauge goes to "E", then the wiring all the way to the sender is good.

There is a ground return wire from the sender. This wire can break through the years. Inspect this short black wire, which is around 9" long and replace it if it's broken from the lug or the connection is bad.

If you find a good solid circuit to the sender and the ground is solid also, that leaves the sender itself. The sender is wire wound resistor with a slider connected to the float. This wire is fragile and eventually it wears through. Sometines connections to this nichrome wire corrode, causing the sender to fail open. You can check the sender with an ohm meter as a last step before spending money on a replacment. It should not read open circuit from its hot pin to ground, even with the tank empty.

Thanks, I also hooked up a potentiometer to the unplugged cable in the trunk leading to the gauge and was able to see the gauge move as I turned the pot. Must be a bad sending unit from that test and what you've said in your post.