Running Temperatures

Hey bud I'll let ya know in a year or so when i get her goin...
Sorry cant help..
Brad

The sender I have now was a replacement for a non working one. I have had this sender sitting in the middle when I first got it and use to start the car and just let it idle until running temp then turn it off. Now I have got it onto the road it doesn't go any higher then in the pic. It's not too much older then two years and nothing has changed except to the cooling system other than putting in antifreeze coolant.

My auto 1300 mk1 always tends to sit about half. Took these couple on the way down and back from SFS in Melb a couple of years back.


 
And 40 degrees bombing down the freeway it hot a little hotter.

 
I did buy a new temp sender at one point, from Repco I think it was, and maybe a green coloured one, can't remember. But it would only just move the gauge off the bottom. Wasn't happy with that so found another white (I think) one from a spare engine and put that in and all was the same again.

That's about where I suspected mine to have sat. I'll see if a new sender will help. Has anyone had issues with the Tridon senders?

SFE

Flighter
May not amount to much, but antifreeze will register a different (lower) temperature, depending on the concentration (in my limited experience).

I always thought running antifreeze will give a slightly higher gauge reading, ie engine running a little bit hotter because antifreeze just doesn't transfer the heat as quickly as straight water. However its benefits of lowering the freezing point, raising the boiling point, lubricating the water pump seal and the anticorrosives formulated into it to reduce rust & scale build-up far outweigh any small increase in running temperature.
SFE

Yeah, I just did a little googling, and I agree with you! I used to use a corrosion inhibitor in another car, and when I went to a 1/3 glycol mix, the indicated temp dropped a bit. A statistician would have a fit at me doling out advice based on one sample, so I willingly recind my earlier comment. Sorry folks!

You will find that it all comes down to electrical compatability.  I bought some VDO gauges in my dash pod, didn't give a correct reading because the ohms range on the original ford sender was different to the ohms range for the gauge.  I bought the correct ohms rated sender for the VDO temp gauge and bingo- correct reading.  I don't know if a parts manual gives the resistance figures/ likewise the aftermarket senders but they have to match. A sparky should be able to test or Mr Google show how to test with a multimeter.  Same idea as the fuel tank sender which has been discussed a bit on this forum. Len