First thing to check would be if it was the gauge, disconnect the wire from the sender and ground it, the gauge should move to full, or at least show a change. Check the sender terminal to ground with a DMM, there should be some kind of resistance there. If it shows open, the rheostat is defective.
If you can't find a replacement, it would probably be possible to find one with the same ohm range that your gauge needs and modify it to the round plate that fastens to the tank, but there could be a fair bit of innovative fabrication work involved.