4000 Temp. Gauge Not Working

WNYBill · Sep 17, 2015

4000, 3 cyl diesel. Worked it hard yesterday on the brush hog. Thought the Temp. gauge worked, comes up to operating temp and stays there. Suddenly it is boiling! Temp. gauge still
shows normal. Between hard work and chaff in the radiator it got hot! I cleaned the radiator and refilled with water and SLOWED DOWN. Finished mowing with no more problems, but now am
worried I may have cooked the thermostat. With an inoperable Temp. gauge, it will be hard to tell.

Is there a way to replace the Temperature gauge in the "Proof Meter" with something aftermarket? Book indicates the sender is located in or near the thermostat housing and must be
electrical, can it be replaced with something mechanical, like on the 800 series?

I am going to take the Proof Meter out and make sure everything is connected. Old Tractor, Old electronics. I would like to replace it with something mechanical.

Bill

sotxbill · Sep 17, 2015

Would trouble shoot the old one first. when you pull the wire off the sending unit and touch it to ground, does the gauge go to full hot? Could just be a bad sending unit? Blown fuse, bad wire. A brand new cluster is only $109 on ebay with all new gauges.

to keep the tach, others have mounted a mechanical heat gauge beside the existing gauge cluster.

RodinNS · Sep 17, 2015

It could be as simple as a piece of enamel in the gauge register flaking off and obstructing the needle... It sometimes happens. Beyond that I suppose it could be a bad gauge but more likely a bad sender if I had to guess.
One other option to consider is that you have a bad head gasket.... and compression is simply pressurizing the cooling system and forcing the coolant out. If it has a bad gasket it's quite normal for those engines to do that and NEVER GET HOT. So I would keep an eye on that just in case.
In terms of adding an aftermarket gauge... I guess you could do that but personally I've never been a fan of it. You just end up with a stupid little gauge and a vibrating needle that you can't see anyway so it tells you just about as much as what you have right now. Nothing.

Rod

WNYBill · Sep 17, 2015

I took the Proof Meter out and checked things as much as I could and did a good job of blowing out the chaff in the radiator. Put everything back together and went back to mowing.......gauge went past hot....but tractor was not. Water was circulating, lower hose was cooler than the top hose, radiator is full. Explain again about the wire from the sender being grounded and causing the needle to go to hot.

Sean in PA · Sep 17, 2015

Explain again about the wire from the sender being grounded and causing the needle to go to hot.

One side of the temperature gauge gets a voltage from the battery through the voltage stabilizer on the back of the instrument cluster. The other side of the gauge is connected to the "sender" in the front of the head. The "sender" is really just a resistor that varies it's resistance as the temperature changes. The resistance gets lower as the temperature goes higher, so you can test the gauge by grounding the wire going from the gauge to the sender with the tractor running, and the needle should go all the way to the hot side. disconnecting the wire completely should make it go all the way to the cold side. If the gauge does both of those, then it is likely good and the problem most likely lies in the sender.

Bern · Sep 17, 2015

The factory gauges were never famous for their accuracy. Myself, I'd leave the factory gauge cluster alone so that it doesn't look butchered up. It's also kinda handy to still have a tach and fuel gauge.

I would go to your local auto parts store and purchase a 2 1/16" mechanical gauge such as the one pictured. With a 270 degree sweep, it will be plenty accurate. I'd either drill a hole in the rear hood and direct mount it, or attach it in a separate holder.

The only issue you'll really run into is that the factory temp sensor location will not support the sensing bulb that comes with the gauge, since it's way too small. Short of drilling and tapping that hole for a larger size, myself, I drill and tap the intake manifold between two of the attaching bolts.

I've done numerous conversions like this, and found all of them to read engine temperature much more accurately than the stock gauges.

4000 Temp. Gauge Not Working

WNYBill

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sotxbill

Well-known Member

RodinNS

Well-known Member

WNYBill

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Sean in PA

Well-known Member

Bern

Well-known Member

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