3600 temp gauge?

DavidLA · Jul 4, 2015

still fixing the 3600, went through the gauges, cleaned out the rat nest have all lights and gauges working fine except temp. the temp gauge pegs hot when grounded at the sender, but at operating temp would barely move up about a 1/4 of an inch. so i figured it must be the sender.

put a new sender on and now it slowly moves up from cold to pegged hot after about 20 minutes of warming the engine. i put my hand on radiator it was warm/kinda hot... but cool enough i could keep my hand on it without burning myself. i took cap off and looked in the radiator no steam or boiling water. i had also put a new voltage regulator on the back of the fuel tank when doing alternator repairs.

how do i know i have the right sender?
or
could my water pump not be moving enough water?

thanks,david

DavidLA · Jul 4, 2015

forgot to say its a 1981 3600
thanks

RodinNS · Jul 5, 2015

I suspect you have the wrong sender.... What happens if you put the old sender back in? Did the new sender have the same size thread as the old one?
Only other thing I could ask is did you make sure you burped all the air out and if the fan belt is tight.... but given that you don't observe it to be hot or boiling over I would say it's likely NOT hot.
Other things you could check for is bare spots on the sender wire leading to the panel. As you know, if it grounds... it will peg the gauge to hot.

Still, I expect you got the wrong sender. I changed clusters on a tractor here a few years back and changed the sender to the one recommended for that cluster... I forget now if it pegged hot immediately or wouldn't move at all... but it was the wrong sender. I ended up installing the old one that should not have worked correctly... and it read perfectly within range that I would have expected it to and verified with an IR heat gun. BTW, if you do use a heat gun on those engines... the truest reading you will get is at the block/head interface over top of the injection pump.

Rod

DavidLA · Jul 5, 2015

thanks Rod
my thoughts as well on the sender. the threads for the block were the same but the stud for the wire was bigger, so i fitted a new wire connector of appropriate size for a good connection.

i am going to order a new sender (from a different supplier) as well as a thermostat, just in case and see if its different.

RodinNS · Jul 5, 2015

I did a quick look in the parts book and it shows three different senders available for the damn thing but the system no longer provides information as to which is which... I think if it was mine I would get the UNIT code off of the hood tag and call a dealer. They may still have some old parts books laying around if they're smart... and they can get the original part number and see what it supersedes up to. Aftermarket stuff with those clusters and senders is a crap shoot...

Rod

3600 temp gauge?

DavidLA

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DavidLA

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RodinNS

Well-known Member

DavidLA

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RodinNS

Well-known Member

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