reading car's fuel gauge signal with arduino uno

Are you measuring from the tank or to the indicator? My read was that the ECM reads the tank and sends a signal to the indicator. Resistors alone do not make a signal, they require excitation. If the tank sensor acts like a pot then one wire will be a fixed excitation and the other the signal return assuming chassis ground. The 140 Ohms could make sense depending on how much fuel is in the tank.

Ron