couple guage electrical questions

do you have the ground strap that goes from the sending unit to the hard line? if you put a jumper wire in the send unit wire's rubber boot and ground the wire and then turn the key to on, the tank will read full if the gauge is good. the bulbs should ground to the copper parts of the dash where it mounts. if the copper parts are wasted you can solder jumpers over the bad parts. i believe i got replacement sockets from napa, carquest, or my local shop. does the regulator pulse on the output side? it should so it drops the voltage to 5 volts.