engine temp....might be a dumb question

[mancinator]

is egt a better indicator of if my engine may be overheating vs the guage on my dash? or are they measuring two different temp?
i ask becuase the gauge on my dash doenst work, and i have a coolant leak and it may be a while before i can get to fix it, its way back along the firewall so i have just been topping up my coolant every day or two. my egts have been normal as usual and it drives the same.
its also been below freezing out here.

 

[stevek]

An EGT gauge really wont show if your cooling system is overheating. It only measures the temperature of the exhaust as it heads out. It really just shows how hard your engine is working if you will...

 

[Martin White]

This has been discussed several times, but to summarize, you can have high or near terminal EGT's and normal engine temps, modest EGT's with an overheated engine, or any combination of the two. There is no simple relation between the two. I have seen this with my own engine once an EGT was installed. If you don't want to get your coolant temp gauge repaired you should probably install an aftermarket one. And now that I've had the cruiser for some time, I have to agree that an EGT gauge is more or less essential, if for nothing else than to ensure your fuel settings have not been fiddled with. It seems the factory settings are quite conservative, but you may have had your fuel turned up and not be aware of it until you install an EGT and check the temps.

In summary then, the installation of an EGT gauge is a very, very good idea. But you should also have a functional coolant temp gauge as well. Do a quick search and you can read about this topic for several hours.

 

[Stone]

I personally would be fairly comfortable running a Toyota diesel for a little bit of time with a pyrometer but no water temp gauge as long as I know my thermostat, water pump, and rad are working okay and the system is always full of coolant.