Factory guage doesn't move till 224 deg

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May 7, 2004
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I was driving up to Canada with the fam the other day and sitting on the bridge to Canada in Niagara Falls I looked down at the scanguage and saw the temp was 215!!. Considering I am dragging a 22 foot trailer across the country in 3 weeks I was a little concerned. Turned both heaters on and listened to the wife complain about how hot she was. When I got a chance to pull over it was easy to see what was wrong. All the nice new CST oil I just rebuilt my fan clutch with was all over the place, maybe next time I will leave the rebuild to professionals. In my defense however when I was rebuilding the clutch there was very little fluid (15 cc maybe) that drained out and there was some dirt that looked to have bypassed the o-ring on the clutch so I think it was trying to fail already. Figured that since the rest of the drive was freeway to Toronto we might as well continue the trip. Boy was I wrong, they decided to rip the freeway up so it was stop and go for a couple of miles. We hit a max of 227 deg with the heater on full. The factory guage only got to maybe 5/8ths and never got close to red. Also it didn't budge until 224 deg. That is quite the dead spot on the guage. My wife kept yelling at me and saying "how do you know that stupid little thing is right" refering to the scanguage and telling me to turn the AC back on. I told her that was impossible 10 deg ago. She wants a new truck. Damn women.
 
Towing is always a Time I watch my gauges,The 2 heaters can really help out.Try a new clutch ,run the cruiser around without the wife and fine tune it. 2 cents MIke
 
IIRC, the A/C cutoff temp is 226F per FSM (somebody check), so you were still OK in principle as I'm sure the designers put some safety margin in there. Still, the lower the better, so you were smart to turn the A/C off and put the heater on. Tell your wife a new engine would be $8,000 or so and she owes you dinner and all the goodies afterwards cuz you were smart enough not to blow it up.... :)

A great example of how a temp gauge can save the day...

What was the ambient temp?

Yes, you better fix this for towing. Can you just bolt the clutch on all the time if need be?
 
Can you just bolt the clutch on all the time if need be?

Robbie did a trail repair on Junk's junk several years ago. I wasn't there so I didn't see the procedure but he basically took string and wrapped it around the clutch assembly which, I believe, "wedged" the clutch to make it like a fixed fan.

-B-
 
All the more reason why RavenTai's temp mod helps so much as well. I had heard of a way to lock the clutch but I dont remember what it was. Not sure if it was string or wire.
 
it would be good to know how to lock it up manually...
 
a little ot, but what temperature should one get worried at? The max my scan gauge has gone is 207 but is normally at 190.
 
You should get worried at the A/C shutoff temp.

-B-

I beg to differ...
He should be *careful* at the A/C shutoff temp. Not necessarily *worried*. There is bound to be still some safety margin at that point. Although, obviously, it does gets closer to too hot, whatever that temp is, and if it keeps going up, some action would be wise. But it's not as if the engine will explode if the temp goes up 1F beyond shutoff...
Having said that, the lower the better, in general.
 
Last edited:
I beg to differ...
He should be *careful* at the A/C shutoff temp. Not necessarily *worried*.

OK, I'll bite.

So, you are driving along with the family on a nice summer day 300 miles from home and the factory temp gauge starts to rise and the A/C shuts off.

You're saying don't worry about it.... right? What would you do in this situation?

-B-
 
OK, I'll bite.

So, you are driving along with the family on a nice summer day 300 miles from home and the factory temp gauge starts to rise and the A/C shuts off.

You're saying don't worry about it.... right? What would you do in this situation?

-B-


that would depend on the situation.

If I'm not doing anything that would justify the rise, e.g. it's a mild day, road is level, and not towing anything, I'd stop and investigate what could be wrong. I'd be real careful and may not even keep going if the situation warrants. Would not be *worried*, though... :D

If I'm doing something taxing, .e.g it's a hot day, the road is uphill, and I'm towing, I'd say thanks to the Toy engineer for working out the shutoff, I'd keep an eye on the temp and keep going after letting things cool down a bit. But I would not be worried either. :)
 
If I'm not worried, I keep driving like the temp needle is horizontal and my Greddy is on 190* and I'll be rocking to a Pink Floyd CD and chatting with my buddies on the 2M and enjoying the beautiful country that we live in.

Stopping to investigate what could be wrong meets my definition of worry.
Deciding to not continue on the trip meets my definition of worry.
Stopping to let things cool down a bit meets my definition of worry.
Keeping an eye on the temp gauge meets my definition of worry.

... and I'm an easy-going type of guy, not a stressed out basket case like you. :D

-B-
 
If I'm not worried, I keep driving like the temp needle is horizontal and my Greddy is on 190* and I'll be rocking to a Pink Floyd CD and chatting with my buddies on the 2M and enjoying the beautiful country that we live in.

Stopping to investigate what could be wrong meets my definition of worry.
Deciding to not continue on the trip meets my definition of worry.
Stopping to let things cool down a bit meets my definition of worry.
Keeping an eye on the temp gauge meets my definition of worry.

... and I'm an easy-going type of guy, not a stressed out basket case like you. :D

-B-


you worry too much! :D
 
After a quick call to Dan I'm not worried
 
I ride at 190 on my Scangauge II almost all the time. Never past 198. Your mileage may vary.
 
Just out of interest do these trucks take some time to come up to normal operating temps?

Mine seems to be running a little cold...

Gauge hardly moves up at all even after 15-20 mins of driving - it comes up to just the bottom of the gauge range - but not to the middle of the gauge.

I installed a scanguage last night so i'll see what it's reporting - but my M3 gets to 190f within 5 mins of firing up.

Wondering if I have a bad temp sensor...

Only had the truck a week and I'm loving it so far - everything seems WAY over engineered - just the way I like it :)
 
Just out of interest do these trucks take some time to come up to normal operating temps?

Mine seems to be running a little cold...

Gauge hardly moves up at all even after 15-20 mins of driving - it comes up to just the bottom of the gauge range - but not to the middle of the gauge.

I installed a scanguage last night so i'll see what it's reporting - but my M3 gets to 190f within 5 mins of firing up.

Wondering if I have a bad temp sensor...

Only had the truck a week and I'm loving it so far - everything seems WAY over engineered - just the way I like it :)



I'm guessing mine would take 10 mins at idle and maybe 5 mins of driving to get to operating temp (close to 1/2 way up IIRC).
There are some more specific numbers floating around here.
 
I'm guessing mine would take 10 mins at idle and maybe 5 mins of driving to get to operating temp (close to 1/2 way up IIRC).
There are some more specific numbers floating around here.

Sounds like I should replace / check my temp sender.
 

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