Water Temp Sensor or Gauge

[1975 WRIEDT MAVRICK]

:mad: What a mess, finally done with the engine, dunked it in a local river to test fire before taking it to the lake and no reading on the water temp gauge???? HELP:D
Grounded the hot wire to the block and pegs the gauge. Put the NEW sensor from local part store in HOT water still no reading. What am I doing wrong, It is one frigging wire...:mad:
I have tried everything. Put the hot wire on the sensor, grounded the sensor (seperate ground) and put it in water no reading????:mad:
It is an Auto meter gauge. Do I have to have the exact same sensor that came out of it? Or will any 1 wire sensor work?:mad:
Realy would like to take my boat to the lake in the morn, but not without a temp sensor, so please help and thanks in advance for any advise.......:mad:

[bakerjet]

wrong sensor for the gauge. :mad:

[OverKill]

Well I don't know if there can be a wrong sensor for a guage. I have the same one and had Stewart Warner's and went to Beede, all with the same sensor. When checking the sensor you have to use boiling water. You just can't use what comes out of the tap. I think your gauge probabley starts at 100 and you won't see the gauge move with that.
Here is what I would do go to your kitchen and heat up some water on the stove while useing a meat thermomitor. You know the one that has a spike at the end of it and use it when your cooking a turkey. Then you can see how hot the water really is. When you put your sensor in and if you don't see your gauge move then you have other probs.

[1975 WRIEDT MAVRICK]

Sorry,forgot to add, water was boiling from being on the stove

[OverKill]

what type of gauge do you have?

[Cheap Thrills]

Are you sure the new sensor is for a gauge and not an Idiot Light ?
C.T. :wink:

[CARLSON-JET]

The ohm scale of the gauge and sending unit must match. napa carries a wide variety or can order just about any scale sending unit.

[watergun4u]

sounds to me as if you have a wiring problem, check the wires on the circit breaker pannel, and then follow the wire up to the gauge, and make sure that you dont have a broken, or lose wire!, i use a standard temp sending unit, and vdo gauges and have had know problems! just my .02!:D

[1975 WRIEDT MAVRICK]

It is an auto gauge, and the sensor came from Advance Auto.

[Scarab Jet]

These are the usual suspects: Thermostat, temp guage and sensor...
Sounds like that you have already eliminated the temp guage as being the culprit by grounding the wire that goes to it and watching the needle jump all the way to the hot side of the gauge...
Next, you need to eliminate the Thermo... Take it out and visually inspect it for excessive rust, etc... They deliberately design them to fail in open position, so they don't cause overheating... So, put it in ice cold water and visually watch it and see if it closes... if so, it is the sensor...
At least that's how I resolved my temp problem the other day...
My .02...

[cruser]

There may only be one wire to the sensor but there are two connections, the v+ source from the guage and v-(ground) via the block. Putting the snesor in hot water to get a reading will not work without gounding the sensor to the same ground the guage uses.
If you have a laser temp probe, you could get an approximamation of the water temp from the location around the sensor. Or if your DMM has a TEMP setting and you have a know good temp probe, take a reading in the thermostat housing.
Grounding the temp wire and pegging the guage shows that that wire is good. Check the ground on the guage. check the ground at the sensor(teflon is a great insulator). Check that the thermostat opens/closes.

[oldasdirt78]

I got mine from Gaugesnow.com

[Jordy]

There may only be one wire to the sensor but there are two connections, the v+ source from the guage and v-(ground) via the block. Putting the snesor in hot water to get a reading will not work without gounding the sensor to the same ground the guage uses.
Bingo.

[Jetaholic]

Is the engine block grounded?

[Sleeper CP]

One word: Mechanical ;)
Sleeper CP
Big Inch Ford Lover

[H2OT TIMES]

Did you use teflon tape to avoid a leak? If so you probably don't have a good ground. Don't use the teflon tape. Just another possibility.

[396_WAYS_TO_SPIT]

Did you use teflon tape to avoid a leak? If so you probably don't have a good ground. Don't use the teflon tape. Just another possibility.
Thats what I was going to say.......

[bp]

since this thread began about 6 months ago, was it ever fixed??? or did we just decide we don't need water temp indication???