Club 80-90 Forums

Hi, having done search I'm getting really confused with my temp gauge. Most people seem to say theirs reads about halfway. In the 2 years I've had mine it barely moves. It rarely puts the fan on. In fact I can only remember it coming on when the fan belt went and once in Germany last year after being stuck in traffic for a long time. Even then the gauge had barely moved.

I've taken the red/yellow wire off the top hat type sender in the engine bay. This has a spade connector on it. I held this wire against the block and the temp gauge slowly rose towards halfway.
Does this mean my sender is duff? The van is a 1985 1.9 dg and runs fine. It went round Europe last year with the only blip being the belt snappng.
I am worried I could be damaging the engine by it running too hot due to the gauge not Reading correctly.
Cheers
jamie

I do beleive that if you touch the wire to block then the gauge should rise all the way so maybee your gauge is playing up ( loose conector at the dash or corrosion of the printed circuit board maybe)
I stand to be corrected as there are greater minds on this forum.

the sender you have pulled the wire from is the feed to the dash gauge and really is an indicator only
you have a temperature sensor on your rad which turns the fan on and a seperate sender which makes the light flash when you overheat. also you have a sender on the header tank which makes the light flash when you run low on coolant.
so if your fans not coming on unless your blasting about and then coming to a stop in traffic and your engines not a steamer with the flashing light all the time then it sounds like all is fine
you can try changing the sender to give a better reading but as all seems settled then let sleeping dogs lay.
regards doug

"Steamer with the flashing light all the time"

Does this mean that if the van overheated then the light would flash as somebody on my last post said it wouldnt? I'm only asking as i'm having issues too.

with sender wire shorted to earth gauge should rise full scale but slowly, once needle starts moving it should continue to climb untill you remove the connection to earth.

Cheers guys
I may change it just for peace of mind and see what happens. Engine not overheating and runs well so I guess it's ok. Fingers crossed.lol

Just for peace of mind I'd advise checking that your rad fan(s) are working .... remove lower front grille, remove multiplug from switch in radiator, with a short piece of wire bridge between the 2 wires (or between the thick wire to each of the other 2 in turn) and see if the fan comes on. The temp. switch on the rad is a favourite to die and Brickwerks sells them, you only find out they're not working when you eventually overheat

Ian.

Ian, I've done as you suggested and bridgedthe wires. The fan comes on fine at both speeds. Does this mean my sender on the bottom of the radiator is fubared? going to Order necessary replacement of required.
Cheers
jamie

It proves your fans and wiring are OK, the thermo-switches are a known weak point and if you've never known your rad fan come on at all I'd swap it just to be safe.

http://www.brickwerks.co.uk/index.php?p ... t&Itemid=6

Ian.

Ian, another daft question.

How often would you expect the fan to come on. I've only noticed mine come on a handfull of times. Always when queuing in traffic for some time. In general driving I've never noticed it come on. The more I think about it the more it worries me. Lol

how easy are they to change? Do you have to fully drain and bleed the system? Would the sender with the spade fitting near the thermostat housing affect whether the fan comes on if it wasn't Reading properly? Trying to gauge how quickly I need to resolve this.
Cheers again.
Jamie

I know what you're saying, you barely ever hear the fans on, especially the slow speed one. Mine comes on about 3/4 high on the guage ... you always think it's getting too hot before the fan finally comes on. If your's comes on at all on it's own the switch is fine.

Ian.

little.legs wrote: how easy are they to change? Do you have to fully drain and bleed the system? Would the sender with the spade fitting near the thermostat housing affect whether the fan comes on if it wasn't Reading properly? Trying to gauge how quickly I need to resolve this.
Cheers again.
Jamie

OK sorry ...

The sender with the spade connector is only for the guage and not linked to the fans.

It takes 10 minutes to change the fan switch, 9 minutes 30 seconds of it tooling up and taking the grille off.

If you're quick ... and have an Official operative to pass the new switch as you take the old one out ... then you loose a mere dribble, and can bleed the rad alone through slacking off the top left bolt.

Ian

Cheers ian
think I'll order both and do them to be on the safe side. Gonna be going away in her a few times before the t4 gets campered up. She'll be my daily til that comes back too, so needs to be right.
Ta again.

Both switches arrived today. Swapped the one in the engine bay and the gauge now reads. It takes an age to get it high enough to bring the fan on. But it did bring the fan on once the needle was just below the red light. Light never came on which I guess is a good thing. Looks like the fan switch is ok after all. Going to swap it anyway if it ever stops raining.
I guess I must've slightly overfilled the rad expansion bottle as when the fan came on I lost a little water from that via the cap. Now the engines cooled it's back to a normal level.
In normal running the gauge read halfway in the White.
Looking good