Jerry H (Jerry)
Junior Member
Username: Jerry
Post Number: 122
Registered: 3-2001
| | Posted on Sunday, August 11, 2002 - 10:49 am: | |
Last week I changed my dash lights to a higher wattage bulb set. Today I took "baby car" (81, 308 GTSI) for an early morning drive while the roads in Dallas were still open. After about 3 miles I looked at the water temp and it was sky high (212 and rising) I took it easy on the way home and started to investigate. I found that one of my fans was unpluged and reconnected. I then started the car and drove around the block and this time the temp was even higher (250) I quickly pulled into the garage and dug into the posts on this site to see what you all had to say. I saw a few that have had some mysterious hot or false hot readings on their gauges too. The info was great if I had recently opened the cooling system...I had not. So I thought maybe a loose or grounded wire in the cluster, something I had hit while relpacing the bulbs. Sure enough I pulled the cluster and turned the key to the aux position and the temp was shown at normal. I wiggled the wires but no change. I then moved the bracket (top right bracket) that holds the cluster plate to the binnacle (it is attached to the temp gauge also)BINGO! I was able to see a cool cars temp rise to 212 and creep up. It seems the bracket torgues the gauge when tighted (at least on mine) and causes the temp to jump high. Just thought I would pass it on for those who have unexplainable high readings. |