Water temp guage instal

[MONMIX]

well,
here is the part of the story I havent shared.
Upon comparrison the AM guage is off by 40f as to the ECM.
I am waiting to instal a new sender. See if that lands me closer.

What I CAN do is get some ohm readings from the OEM on the bench.

 

[spindlecone]

That sucks bigtime, sorry, can you get the sender out without removing the intake?
How did you determine the sender is at fault.
AM also makes a mech temp gauge, any idea as to how both compare?

 

[IAmTodd]

So you have a check gage light now? How about applying some voltage to the sender wire for the stock to make it come up? Put as resistor on it so it reads in the middle to look good.

 

[MONMIX]

That sucks bigtime, sorry, can you get the sender out without removing the intake?
How did you determine the sender is at fault.
AM also makes a mech temp gauge, any idea as to how both compare?

I called AM and spoke with their tech guy he told me to put my DVM on this wire and that wire. Then he asked me to tell him the reading I was getting from the ECM. He said _____ degreese f should be _____ volts. It was off considerably. He also walked me through a test for the guage its self and that was dead on. Sorry I am unable to give specifics, I had the phone in one hand and the meter in the other hand and was unable to make note of the information he was giving me.

I might beable to do the swap with just removing the engine cover,t-stat cover and maybe the TB. The AM sender seems considerably easier to work with as opposed to the OEM. I'll have to get back with on the end result. Otherwise there is no way to remove the OEM with out removing the intake.

 

[MONMIX]

So you have a check gage light now? How about applying some voltage to the sender wire for the stock to make it come up? Put as resistor on it so it reads in the middle to look good.

no, not at all.
It sits in the cold position which at times is considered normal.

I could relocate it to the heater hose, but really,,,,,,,, why ?

 

[aldive]

Nice install Kevin.

If you keep having problems, you might want to try a Dakota Digital gauge.

 

[MONMIX]

Thanks for the compliment Al.
Nah, no digital for me.

 

[MONMIX]

The next chapter

Okay, the temp sender body needed to be grounded. The factory sender location is in some sort of composite body. So I had to create a body ground for the sender. See photo 1. I striped a good two inches from the wire and tinned it ( soaked it with solder ) Then I wraped it around the body of the sensor. I then reheated it to get the solder to flow onto the brass. The one in the picture was a practice " to see if it could be done ". The one that actually went into the truck looked a good bit cleaner.

I orgionally grounded it to the valve cover as seen in photo two. This is NOT a sufficent ground. It does in fact ground, but it does not allow the guage to read correctly. I moved the ground to the fire wall right by the wiper motor and that turend out to be perfect.

The end result is a guage that reads with in 3 degreese or less of the ECM.
Sounds like a winner to me

 

[spindlecone]

Glad all worked out for you.
Would still be interesting to see what voltage is sent to the AM gauge at say a given readout.
Might still be possible to tap the OEM readout to the AM Gauge, Just curious

 

[MONMIX]

yeah this week I will throw the meter on there and document voltage to temp.

 

[mynameisaric]

so i just got my oil pressure and water temp gauges in a pod on the a-pillar... n such, etc etc, and now its time to hook up to the sensors, or senders.. whatever you want to call em. i really just want to splice into the oem sender. by reading the thread, i'm guessing no one has done it? and i've also read that i need to put a T connector onto the oil pressure and hook up another oil presure sender for the gauge. if i just hooked up to the stock water temp sender, what wire would i use? is there a test i can use to figure out which of the 2 sends a signal? (thinking one is a ground and one sends a signal.) and as for the oil pressure, if i hooked up to that....(checkin haynes to see what i'm looking for first) if i hooked into that wire, would it just send 2 different signals to the gauge(1 for normal pressure, and one for extremely low pressure)?

p.s. i'm using cyberdyne gauges. i know there not as good as autometer, but they lit up green with a black background, so they match the rest of my instrumentation.

 

[mynameisaric]

i went to summit and looked up cyberdyne sending units... i see now that i probabl need those. these damn things arent as easy as they look. so i'm guesing i need the actual sender for my gauges, and cant use the oem at all?

 

[MONMIX]

I am unsure if splicing will do the trick. I dont know what the results will be.

I regret not taking the camera into the shop when I did the oil presseur guage. It is pretty easy really, ya just need to buy a T fitting and maybe a step up.

 

[mynameisaric]

yeah... i was looking for the oil pressure, and just going to run a test wire to it, and its cold and dark. and the wind kept blowing the pages of my haynes manual.. and i couldnt find the oil pressure thing, so i gave up and called it a day. my water temp just scrolls "lo" continuously and my oil pressure reads a constant 80 for now. i plan on making them work. next weekend at the latest. but hey, its spring break, so maybe i'll work on my truck during the week.