Mr. Death

I installed an Autometer mechanical water temp gauge today and it doesn't want to work. It lights up but the gauge itself does not measure temp. I used the clock wiring harness for the 12v ignition power source for the light on the gauge and the gauge sender 12v source. I used the ground from the clock harness to ground the light on the gauge and grounded the gauge itself on the thermostat ground as the instuctions say to use a ground close to the temp sender for whatever reason. It lights up BUT does not read temp. Any ideas???? Perhaps a better ground for the gauge. Please help!!!
THanks

Mr. Death

Please help, eheeee.

89SIHATCH?

did you go for a drive to give it a chance to get warm??
dunno if it matters or not.

i guess you can try that first.
(but you probably already did Lol.)

Cynikal.Mindset

so its an electric gauge or mechanical?

89SIHATCH?

Mr. Death

Mechanical....

Cynikal.Mindset

so mechanical doesnt use a sender unit, it uses a mechanical probe like a thermometer so it will read temp car on or off the only power required is for the lights...so I'm kinda confused

89SIHATCH?

thats why i asked that question above.

but guess he doesnt wanna answer it. oh well

Mr. Death

Sorry it's an electrical gauge. Here are some pics.
Back of gauge.

The light uses a 12v power and a ground which I tapped into at the clock wiring harness. The other 3 wires are a ground which I attached to the thermostat ground, a 12v wire which goes to the clock harness(same as gauge light..o.k. or no??) and the last wire goes to the terminal post on the sender.
A pic of the sender which I tapped into the heater hose which is always open so coolant flow is always present. Where did I go wrong??

Cynikal.Mindset

check the sender for continuity...its possible u may just have a bad sender

or personally I woulda tapped into power for the sender seperate from the clock harness...like used a direct switched power for the sender from the fuse box, which ensures a clean power supply intead of shared with deck, clock, etc etc

Mr. Death

I figured it out. It seems that the copper that the sender was attached to needed to be grounded. At first I tried grounding the sender itself and the gauge went all of the way to the right and stayed there so then I tried grounding the copper "T" and presto it works. Here's a pic to further explain what I mean.

89SIHATCH?

good stuff

imported_Cablerat

how people have faith in crappy pluming clamps scares me.

Please find some better clamps. 1 winter - that **** will rust out and start skipping teeth, leaving you **** out of luck when all your coolant pours out on the 401.

Mr. Death

Meh,I don't drive my car in the winter. Speaking of coolant pouring out, sounds like a Volkswagen I bought off of you a couple of winters ago. You weren't so concerened about my well being then so why now?????