Transmission Guage Problem

[94GTStang]

I finally got around to hooking up my Autometer tranny guage tonight, but ran into a problem.
Whenever I turn the car on, the needle does a full sweep to the far right and stays there. I know I hooked up the ground and sender wire correctly. And the ground wire is exactly the same length as the sender wire. The 'hot' wire is correct since the gauge goes back to the left after the car has shut off.

I'm perplexed and could use some help! Thanks in advance!

Eric

 

[HISSIN50]

I would check once more (not to doubt you at all) to make sure you dont have a dedicated ground attached to the sending unit screw instead of having that ground on the sender body.

If you have ground hooked to the sender, the gauge will still fall to the left when the car is turned off since the field inside the guage collapses.

Good luck.

 

[94GTStang]

Thanks for the reply.
I am going to double check things Wed. when I have some more time. But I think it may be the ground as well. Perhaps it's not in a great spot. Which I can't imagine why exactly that would be. But I will move over to the frame and see what I get.
I'll get it updated though!

 

[HISSIN50]

FWIW, any clean ground near the sender body should work well for grounding the sender itself (if your sender is not externally grounded via its mount in a hard line, etc). You can ohm out this connection to ensure it is clean.
I use a separate ground inside the car for the gauge's grounding (did you run the gauge ground to the sending unit too?).

Good luck.

Good luck.

 

[94GTStang]

FWIW, any clean ground near the sender body should work well for grounding the sender itself (if your sender is not externally grounded via its mount in a hard line, etc). You can ohm out this connection to ensure it is clean.
I use a separate ground inside the car for the gauge's grounding (did you run the gauge ground to the sending unit too?).

Good luck.

Good luck.

When I get home, I will try moving the ground and seeing what I get with that.
But I followed the instructions to a tee. http://www.egauges.com/pdf/AutoMeter/665h.pdf

 

[HISSIN50]

In that write up, they assume your sender is grounded via the motor ground. I would ohm out the sender body to make sure you have a clean ground, or just run an aux ground (I would do the latter). Otherwise your gauge can read off a bit. It sounds like you ran a dedicated ground to the sender already, but I figured it was worth mentioning again since you will probably be under the car (or whereever your sender is located).

Good luck.

 

[94GTStang]

In that write up, they assume your sender is grounded via the motor ground. I would ohm out the sender body to make sure you have a clean ground, or just run an aux ground (I would do the latter). Otherwise your gauge can read off a bit. It sounds like you ran a dedicated ground to the sender already, but I figured it was worth mentioning again since you will probably be under the car (or whereever your sender is located).

Good luck.

Well, I moved my ground but still no luck. The hot is reading fine and the sender and ground both read 0.
I loosely followed this right up also http://neptune.spacebears.com/cars/stories/trgauge.html
Here is a picture of how I ran all the wires. It all makes sense to me, but perhaps you can see if I went wrong anywhere.
Also, here is a picture of where I put the sender, though I don't think that matters much.

Thanks for your help!

 

[HISSIN50]

I gotcha Eric. I thought you tapped the trans line with a manifold adapter for the gauge (hence the need for an aux ground). Now I am curious about the location on the trans that you used. But since I am not familiar with installing the sender in the trans itself, I dont know what issues it could cause (mine is on the outlet line from the trans to the cooler).

I dont see anything wrong with your wiring though. One thing: I read on the Corral recently about a guy who got a temp gauge with the wrong sender (it was a sender calibrated for a different gauge with a different sweep and heat range). That would be my last thought if the sender wire itself is not shorting to ground (it should read little or no ohms when the car is off).

Good luck Eric and bump for the wise folks in here to help.

 

[94GTStang]

Thanks for your help! I am going to see if I can't get a new sender and try that out. Hopefully I can pick one up locally.

 

[94GTStang]

Well, for $10.88 I picked up a new sender from Summit. That seemed to have been the problem from the get-go! So now I have a working gauge finally!

Thanks for all the replies and help!

Eric

 

[HISSIN50]

Sweet Eric - glad you got it. You are not the first to have gotten a bad sender - makes me wonder if I should try another one myself (I run cooler than I think I should).

 

[94GTStang]

Sweet Eric - glad you got it. You are not the first to have gotten a bad sender - makes me wonder if I should try another one myself (I run cooler than I think I should).

Well, I had the guage for about 5 years now. It really wasn't hooked up, but my brother and I were too lazy to ever fix it. Now that I have some time to get around to it, I figured it out. So the sender could have already been good from the start and went bad later on. Oh well.... Just glad it's working.

Thanks again for your help!

Eric