temp gauge update

[ojsmith]

hi

some of you might remember an earlier thread, where meggles and i were trying to get to the bottom of my erratic temp gauge on my 1.9 petrol autosleeper.

well, its been to the garage and had some bare wires replaced, and earths cleaned up etc - and the problem has almost gone away. almost, not completely... every so often - maybe 200 miles, maybe immediately upon pulling away, the temp guage will shoot up to the top and stay there for a few minutes before returning to the middleish, while the red light sometimes flashes a bit at the same time...

has anyone got any suggestions around this??! stil not losing any coolant or showing signs of actually overheating...

cheers

olly

[AngeloEvs]

The LSCU (looks like a relay, position 3, marked 43 or 42, in fuse box on post 86 models). These can load the temp gauge and the only way of determining if intermittently faulty is to remove it as soon as the gauge fault appears and see if it returns to normal. Other than that, you can measure the resistance across the gauge and sender from the LSCU socket but you will need to have a meter handy. As soon as the fault appears, pull over, whip the LSCU out. If the guage still reads high then measure the resistance at the now vacant LSCU socket and check it. Anything less than 50 ohms and your coolant temp is too high or you still have a wiring fault.

Place the meter across the terminals where the resistor is located (you don't need one, its for testing the gauge), a couple of spade connectors will make accessing the socket a lot simpler with meter probes.

[ojsmith]

cheers for that - i don't have any equipment (or ability) for doing the tests, but i will certainly try whipping the 43 box out (or actually get the mrs to do it, as its probably a bit dangerous to do it myself at 60 mph on the A1)

is there a similarly easy way to heck if it is the voltage stabiliser? the petrol gauge doesnt really behave in the same way as the temp gauge though, so i guess this is an unlikely cause

i have noticed that the 43 LSCU thing does get pretty hot while driving... is that ususal?

cheers

oliver

[AngeloEvs]

never checked to see if they get warm but there is nothing in there that should get hot. If your fuel gauge is OK then I doubt that you have a problem with the stabiliser and it wouldn't cause ther fault you are experiencing anyway.

[ojsmith]

hmm, yeah that's what i figured - do you think i should try changing the LSCU?

[AngeloEvs]

got a couple of good spare ones, pm me your address and will pop one in the post and see if it cures the problem. They do come up on Ebay and are available new but about £27-00.