Guage questions

[salvageV6]

It is also a good idea to first install any gauges on a good running car. Get your baseline data no matter what it is (numberwise) under all driving conditions, which means you actually have to drive the car a bit.

Once you have your baseline(s) regardless of overall accuracy a deviation from that data on your car would indicate something is up. Sometimes you hope it's the gauge with a problem and not the car actually.

Electrical senders have gotten much better with some manufacturers with the use of thermistors, real pressure transducers and regulated internal supplies and all with ASIC chips.... but they don't put them in the cheaper gauges. I bet the ricers have them.

You are always looking for changes to the norm for your car and not some magic number that everyone has since the install location and type and accuracy all will matter.

Just my .02 or .03 for you electrical gauge guys.

 

[Super6]

SalvageV6

Thanks for the pics and everyones help.............................Bob

 

[tom h]

Originally posted by GNandTTA
Someone please enlighten me: I don't see how any kind of mechanical temperature gauge could be better than an electric temperature gauge. If you have the gauge mounted in the dash you would have to have a tube at least 3+ feet long. I would think it would take a long time before the fluid trapped at the gauge would become the same temp as the fluid in the motor you are trying to monitor. The pressure gauges I can see because fluids transfer pressure well, but not temps.

Doesn't work that way ... a Mech temp guage does NOT rely on the fluid at the guage display to heat up.

The fluid in the "bulb" end (by analogy to a mercury thermometer) heats up and its PRESSURE increases. A narrow flexible capillary tube leads to the guage display. The guage display senses this pressure increase (not temp), the needle moves from the pressure... to be useful as a temp guage, the numbers are of course calibrated to ºF (as opposed to "psi"!).

But it's really transmitting pressure, not temperature.