i noticed the oil temp on my 7 seems a little high. after it warms up the oil temp gauge stablizes at around the halfway mark, sometimes a little higher. is this too hot? today i replaced the thermostat but it didnt change anything. i also recently flushed my cooling system. could something be wrong with the oil cooler?

 

alright now something is definatly wrong. i was on my way home just a couple minutes ago and i look down and notice the oil temp is around 3/4 of the way up!! i hope nothing got messed up. i really need to find out whats wrong! anybody know what the most probable thing would be? radiator? oil cooler ? water pump?

 

There is no stock guage for oil temp.

There are however guages for oil *pressure* and *water* temp.

Think first of any changes done to your car recently... Change an oil filter perhaps? FRAM oil filters are notorious for sucking. They up the oil pressure in a major way.

If not that, check that your fan is operating properly (are you using stock or electric? is the choke working on the stock one?) the Heynes can point you in that direction. That will cause the water temp to soar if that isn't working.

Other than that I'm outta clues... Anyone?

 

damn i suck i always thought it was oil temp i dunno why (ive only had my 7 for 6 months). anyways.....i changed the oil and the thermostat. i have the stock fan it works fine - blows air like a mo fo. the choke works fine also. cmon guys i need help. i hope its not expensive like the rad cause im broke.

 

Stating the obvious: I think you need to figure out if your gauge is working properly. Are you running A/C, and what's the tempature outside? Does the gauge fluctuate, or is it going up to 3/4 and staying there (including the A/C on/off)? Needless to say, you'll get some water temp increase by driving in a 100 degree day, going 70 mph, with the A/C on.

I tried to find the normal operating temp for a 12A in my shop manual, but had no luck. You may have to run down a procedure to check the water temp beyond using the car's gauge... That'll help you work to the root of the problem. Instrument gauges do go bad (especially if you've had the cluster in and out).

 

well i dont have a/c. i havent taken the cluster out but a bad gauge is a possibily - my oil pressure gauge doesnt work at all. what is the easiest....i mean cheapest way to test the water temp without using my stock gauge? what if i got a cheap gauge and took out the coolant level sensor and put it in there?

 

After I left the last message - it dawned on my you could probably connect the temp sensor wire to another gauge... If your oil pressure gauge isn't working, I'd start looking for a new gauge set from a yard, or Ebay.

Again, is the gauge fluctuating, or steady?

 

i want to test the water temp sensor itself. on the left side of the engine, to the right of the oil filler neck, helt on by a small hex nut - is this it? the guage is pretty steady just acts weird. this happens slowly- it gets to normal op temp, slows down and then gets up to halfway or a little more and usually stays there, then sometimes like last night it goes up real high. i guess you could call that fluctuating but it happens slowly. maybe its fine and my engine actually is overheating but i still wanna check it to make sure

 

ok i know thats the sensor. now how do i test it? i took it out and as i was doing that the wire came off really easily not sure if this is ok. i know i have to measure the resistance but what to points to i measure at?

edit: im not sure if i did it the right way but i tested the resistance with one lead inside where the wire came out of and one at the end of the sensor. i got readings all over the place but mostly around .5 ohms and sometimes it would jump around 10-15. this seems way too low for when the engine is cold but i might have tested it wrong

 

ok i was messing with it more and now i got readings to stablize around 20 megaohms but i can still get the low readings too by moving the inside lead around.......what the hell........am i doing something wrong or do i need a new water temp sensor?

 

so do you think i need a new water temp sensor?