Club 80-90 Forums

Picked up my new van yesterday, 84 1.9 DF engine but great interior and bodywork. Stopped to fill up after 10 minutes drive and then when I set off again red coolant light refused to go off but both tanks were full and rad was warm. No dash lights other than this, Speedo and fuel gauges work fine. When I switched headlights on the red light went off so I got home with only one light on full beam, no dash lights and no movement of the temp gauge. So I've got some earths to clean up and some switches to check but here's the thing, I can't find the thermostat, it's not where it was in my previous DG, so can't find the sender. Am I missing something? Has a previous owner done some fiddling about?

Earth crowns do sound like the right place to start with this issue, as well as fuses.

A single brown cable connects to engine temperature sender on the engine (circled in red), close to where your coolant expansion tank is in your photo.
Pull the single spade connector off the sender and ground it on the engine block with ignition on: should result in temperature gauge going fully to the right (hot).
Remember you’ve also got a low coolant level sensor in the expansion tank - circled in green. This connects with relay 42 or 43, which is close to the earth crowns adjacent to the fuse box behind passenger glove box on mine.

I note a couple of differences with your engine photo from my ‘83 DF:
Expansion tank is a different (later?) model to mine (mine has a metal fill/pressure cap, not Dalek type).
Also your engine oil filler tube appears more vertical and I wonder if you can top up the oil using the licence plate flap as I can (which is therefore less of a faff than taking the engine cover off)?

Best of luck with sorting the electrical gremlins

Thanks for this. There are a few later bits I noticed too. The brown wire looks awful so makes sense to replace as soon as. I've cleaned up the sensor in the tank but need to get it back in.

The list gets bigger but that's part of the joy.

You’ve probably found it by now but just read your post.
The thermostat on these engines is at the water pump so the same area as the temp sender.

Thanks, I'm waiting for a decent deal on coolant until I drain what's in there and replace the sender and thermostat but at least o know where they are now.