[Cruiser Jimmy]

Well, I got the Autometer's sending unit installed today. As well the unit's wiring.

The gauge is resting in one of the cup holders until I find a guage pod for it.

What I did to install the sending unit (on an 3FE FJ80):

1. remove the front drive shaft. This gives you more room to work with.

2. Remove the trans coolers outlet pipe. Reference the pics attached. The pipe on the left is the return line from the trans cooler. The pipe on the right is the outlet from the tranny to the cooler. (This is the location at which you understand the true tempurature coming out of the tranny.) The reason why I removed the trans outlet pipe was to block the port. I'll explain later.

3. The outlet pipe's union has a left flanking void. I drilled a whole into the void with a modded 9/32" drill bit (put it in a vise and made it a stubby.) On the 60 series this void was used for an oulet of some sort. I don't really know. So you might not be able to used this location. In which case you should follow Zebrabee's suggestion and 'T' it off.
Yes, I drilled onto the transmission. This is what I did. I'm not telling you that you need to follow my lead on this one.

4. Next, I had to buy a 1/8" NPT tap to thread the whole that will accomadate the Autometer sending unit. Make sure to tap the hole down to about the last 2 or 3 thread on the tap.

5. Use a blue shop towel or whatever and block the regular outlet hole of the cooler. Use something to hold the towel in place.

6. Clean out the newly drilled whole the best you can of all the aluminum fragments.

7. Start the engine and let it run about 3 to 4 seconds. Enough time for you to start the engine, bend down, watch the oil come out, bend back up and turn the key off.

8. Clean up the mess.

9. Screw in the sending unit.

10. Reconnect the outlet pipe of the tranny cooler.

11. Reconnect the drive shaft.

12. Now then, use some dielectric grease on the sending units elec. fitting.

13. Connect your wiring: ground, power and Illumination and the gauge will start to read the temp.

On the test drive I ran down about 4 miles away from home and came back. The temp started to climb to 180º. Then up to 220º when it finally came to rest. The tranny shifted in all four gears without a problem if you're wondering about the aluminum fragments.

I'm going out on the freeway tomorrow and do some more temp run ups and see what I get.