I just finished installing my Autogauge water temp gauge, did everything the intructions said, but once it was hooked up the needle on it goes straight over to full temp ( 120c) and wont move from that position unless the ignition is turned off ( this is even when the car hasnt been run so no my water temp is NOT 120c) i was thinking maybe it has something to do with the wire that goes from the sender being the wrong gage wire?? it says to use 18g wire, but i think i used plain speaker wire that is about 14-16 gage, any ideas??

 

I would suggest just double checking where all your wires go. Deff sounds like you miswired or the gauge is bad.

 

Sounds like there's a problem with the sender wire. Check the connections again. Also check the ground wire, make sure you have it on a piece of metal thats connected to the frame (best place). All else fails switch the wire to 18g.

 

make sure the sender is not touching the cap

 

Check the copper wire thats connected to the sensor. They can crimp pretty easily, or have the sheething scratched off and touch metal.

 

sounds like neg and pos are reversed. done it myself

 

Yeah check you're wires some people have had that effect when their ground wire was not connected properly. I made sure I had my wires connected right first time and it worked like a charm. Don't worry about gage of wire. I think the difference in resistance between different gage wires will be relatively insignificant compared to the resistance of the sender.

 

...Or it could be that the sender wire you installed is shorted/grounded somewhere along its path.

The gauge of wire is irrelevant and not the problem, period. Anything larger (numerically smaller in gauge No.) than about #24 is just overkill anyway and will not influence the readings at all.

Go back and carefully double check everything you did--better yet, have someone else look at it and go through it with them. (It is often easier for someone who didn't do the install to catch mistakes.) If you trace it carefully, you'll eventually find the problem.

 

ok , i went through and checked the wires and i found the sender wire was a bit frayed in places, so i ripped that out and replaced it with another heavyer gauge wire, its now working fine. it mustve been grounding somewhere causing the advere reaction, cheers for your help