Man, am I confused (even more than normal!). I took the temp sender out
of the intake manifold, ran a ground wire to it, boiled a pan of water,
ran back downstairs to the car and the garage with it, and measured the
temp with my multimeter....about 190 degrees on that....the dash guage
read 220 or so, about the same 30 degree srread I was getting yesterday
when I measured the outside of the manifold with the multimeter. I
figured I'd solved the mystery, that the guage reads about 30 degrees
hotter than the water actually is. I ran upstairs again, boiled the
water, ran downstairs again, seemed to get a little better ground on the
sender, and now the mystery thickens....Multimeter reading in the pan of
water.....about 200....Guage, barely over 200, pretty darn close. I
tried this several times and now, when I made sure the sender was well
grounded while taking the reading, dash guage readings and the
multimeter were pretty close.
My intake manifold is an LAT "Tiger" script lo rise, and I believe it's
made of aluminum. Is this right? I don't think aluminum is a very good
conductor for a ground, is it? I screwed the sender back into the
manifold, but this time I've run a ground wire (I looped a wire around
the very top of the sender threads so when I tightened it down the
sender tightened onto the wire) to a good ground screw. It will be very
interesting in the morning how the guage reacts with the sender now
definitely grounded.
Would a poor ground to the sender cause it to read higher than if it was
grounded properly? I found tonight that with no ground at all the sender
didn't cause the guage to move at all, and when I accidentally grounded
the main wire to the sender (that goes to the guage), the needle pegged
out all the way to the right, As soon as I was able to gound the sender
body, the gueage reacted more normally. Hope this all makes sense.
Anyway, after all this aggravation, I'm probably going to send the guage
off the Mo-Ma anyway next week to have it properly checked and
calibrated. Unless, that is, in some stop and go traffic tommorow the
needle stays around 200-210 and doesn't creep up to 230-240.
Steve Sage
Spending way too much time late at night letting that @%%#^**^%%!!!!
guage drive me nuts.
|