wiring up tranny temp guage

[fLyPiNoY7]

so the instructions say that the temp guage should be attached to the side of the tranny fluid pan, but since i figure that there shouldnt be any difference, i attached it via a bunch of brass fittings to the line coming from my tranny cooler...

as for the wiring, when i grounded the sender, the guage shot up to 250 degrees and stayed there...so my question is, did the way i set up the sender affect the way that the temp is read?...

and another question would be what the normal tranny fluid temps should be? (for a triptronic auto)

 

[fLyPiNoY7]

nevermind...figured out what the problem was...

 

[SIBalla23]

What was the problem? Also can you write a quick how to on how to install this guage?

 

[dinux]

Yeah, I am kind of curious as well. I have mine installed and it reads anywhere from 150 to 180 depending on my driving. My gauge is also weird with the ground wire. Right now the gauge doesn't have a ground wire attached to it. When I add the ground the gauge rests at 0 and doesn't move. My dads mechanic was telling me that I should have a fitting put into the housing the comes off the side of the block for the temperature sender to thread into. I have an extra housing at my parents house so I am thinking about having this done. Supposedly it will only cost about $30. If I can find a picture of what I mean I will show you.

 

[fLyPiNoY7]

the autometer instructions state that the sender should be fitted to the side of the tranny fluid pan, which requires that i drain the whole setup, pop a hole in the side, and weld the sender there...this setup actually grounds out the sender automatically so that u dont have to...

but the way i have it setup, its actually mounted inline on the hose that comes out of the tranny cooler via a series of brass fittings, which keeps it from being grounded...so i attached a ground wire on the same terminal as the signal wire...the problem was that apparently, the sensor doesnt like that and doesnt read accurately...i simply moved the ground wire to the brass fitting itself and it started working fine...normal temps have been between 150-180 for me as well

so quick and dirty how-to:
1) run signal wire from guage to engine bay
2) run red wire at back of guage to ignition and black wire to ground
3) wire black and white wires (for illumination) to light switch
4) if running inline from cooler, go to autozone or any shop that has brass fittings (should be a tee when pieced together)
5) cut hose from cooler to tranny
6) install brass fitting and sender setup in the pieces you cut
7) run ground wire to brass fitting setup (not sender itself)
8) run signal wire to sender and attach on top of terminal

 

[SIBalla23]

If its not to much, could you take a pic of the tap into the hose and the sender and the ground wire to brass fitting.

 

[SIBalla23]

Last thing, do you know what the size of the hose is to the tranny cooler? Or the size of the brass tee?

 

[fLyPiNoY7]

yeah, ill try to take a pic of it tomorrow...the ground wire is sorta ghetto rigged onto the fitting since there wasnt really any way for me to attach it on there...so i just wrapped electric tape around it and the fitting to make sure it held on...

as for the size of the hose to the tranny cooler, im really not sure but the size of the brass tee will depend on the adapters you use to connect it to the sender...i just went to my local autozone with the sender, asked to check out the brass fittings, then mixed and matched until i made a tee out of it...and luckily, since they were crazy busy and he didnt wanna look up each individual part number for each part, the manager ended up giving me the fittings for free!

 

[SIBalla23]

So let me get this straight, the sender had to be grounded. And there is a wire from the sender that must be sent to a ground point? Couldn't you just attach the wire to a chasis ground?

 

[SIBalla23]

Or is there just a ground wire from the fitting to a chasis ground point in the engine bay. So that would make the sender grounded because the sender is directly connected to the fitting. Tell me which one is right.

 

[fLyPiNoY7]

yes, the sender has to be grounded...since the sender is meant to be attached to the tranny fluid pan and grounded through the fitting, theres no ground wire that comes with it...i had to make my own grounding wire that went to a grounding point that i made in the engine bay, connecting from the fitting...when i tried hooking up the grounding wire to the sender, it did the whole "spike at 250 degrees" thing...

 

[dinux]

By the way, I was talking about water temp, not tranny temp! But my gauge was doing the same thing yours was with the ground, which is why I posted.

 

[fLyPiNoY7]

yeah...apparently these senders need to see ground to work correctly...