I have a 1982 Suzuki GS650L motorcycle and the fuel meter won't read correctly anymore.?

[Jakeinator21]

A couple weeks after purchasing it I ran it out of gas and being unfamiliar with the fuel-cock design I switched it to prime instead of reserve by accident. Now my fuel meter always reads between a quarter and a half of a tank.Could this be the reason my fuel meter isn't working? If so how can I fix it? If not, then what could possibly be the problem?
I don't think the sending unit is bad because the meter still changes levels. It fluctuates between 1/4 and 1/2 half.

[Jancie]

I think you have an unrelated problem that just happened to occur. The float inside the tank sends a signal to the guage. Potential problems are the sending unit finally died, a wire off the sending unit or a wire broken on the sending unit, the plastic or cork float inside the tank has developed a leak and has let fuel inside there fore never allowing it to show full (most likely). Fixes-well Suzuki is not gonna have the sending unit at this point, so you will be stuck with trying to fix the one you have. If you can find an drain all the fuel out and seal the hole, great, it should work as new. If not you will be stuck with finding a floating devise-cork works well but has its own set of problems-ie tends to crumble after a while in the fuel. Then coating it so it does not literally fall apart and getting a glue that is impervious to petroleum so it can be attached onto the arm.

You could also try a salvage yard for a used unit, once the problem has been found and identified.