why dont my gas gauge work 97 ford escort with 214,000 miles on it its at half all you like to ask?

The gauge sender unit has a little float attached that rises and falls with fuel level. Yours is getting stuck somewhere in the middle.

Remove it, clean it, try again. Or buy a new one.

For the horn, check the fuse. Remove the horn and wire it directly to the battery. Still no noise? Buy new horn.

The sender is a rusted piece of junk. You need to pull the tank off to get to it. The horn needs someone with a voltmeter to poke around. It's usually the clockspring in the steering wheel on those cars. You can tell quick by grounding the green/orange wire going into the steering column connector. If that blows the horn, the clockspring is bad.

More than likely, the fuel float in the gas tank isn't working. Dash fuel gauges rarely go bad. The dash gauge reads what the fuel float tells it to.

You probably need to replace the sending unit in the tank. The horn would be a separate problem.

try grounding the gas tank. sometimes rust causes

a poor ground.