im gathering parts for a triple mechanical gauge pod on my drivers a-pillar. an accurate water temp is a must in my opinion, (feel free to express your opinions on the other two gauges, I am thinking a vac gauge and a voltage meter at the moment)

im looking for clean options on installation for the temp sender and I know LCE makes a little insert for your upper rad hose that accepts common 3/8 threaded senders. does anyone have one of these that can show me how it looks installed, and give me your opinion on the product? thank you.

 

A couple thoughts to keep in mind. Most temperature sensors ground through the body. Since the body is threaded into that adapter which has no ground connection, you'll have to separately ground that adapter. Secondly, that location in the cooling system is after the thermostat. So you will not get an accurate reading until after the thermostat opens. Once it opens, it's all normal and good, but you won't be able to watch warm up temps. And if the thermostat was to fail shut, you wouldn't see it. For these reasons, I drilled and tapped a hole into the thermostat housing area on the intake manifold. I'm sure some people don't like drilling holes in hard to replace parts, so this might not be for you. To me, it seemed like the most functional location.

 

thanks, I thought about the ground issue but didn't think about the location being pre-thermostat. im not to keen on drilling holes in parts, but its not totally out of the question. I also considered using the block drain with some kind of thread adaptor.

 

I can post a picture of my install using one of these adapters. Not complete but I do have the sensor installed on the hose. I am using an Chinese special housing and an autogauge temp sensor.


The other poster is right. It's hard to get an accurate representation of the temperature unless you tap in a sensor yourself. But it can't be that bad since the gauge temp sensor is also prethermostat

 

You want the sensor to be before the thermostat. That way it see the temperature of the water coming out of the head. Both factory sensors are located after the head and before the thermostat. This is the best location. Installing one in the upper radiator hose is after the thermostat which means you will not see a true representation of temperature unless the thermostat is open.

Interesting idea about the block drain location. Might not be a true representation though since the coolant hasn't finished its path through all the hot parts of the engine yet.

Water gets cooler as it goes through the radiator, and hotter as it travels through the engine. Typically you'd want to know the hottest temperature of water in the engine, so you need the sensor to be after the engine, and before the radiator. If you want constant monitoring, it needs to be before the thermostat.

 

Why don't you just use the factory temp sensor? It might not be plug-and-play with an off-the-shelf gauge, but it would be easy enough to re-calibrate any gauge that uses a resistive sensor. (Just pull the sensor, put it in a container of water with a known-good thermometer, and raise the temperature to cover the range you care about.)

You get the best of all possible locations, and you don't have to drill into anything.

 

I guess my issue with this would be accuracy, and I don't want to get rid of my factory gauge. unless you mean to splice into the line and use two gauges off the same wire.

 

I thought you had the factory gauge. The sender for the light is just a switch, and can't be used for a gauge.

 

Dummy light? For the temperature?

 

sorry I was in a bit of a hurry this morning, I have the factory gauge not a light.

 

sorry, meant gauge

 

The factory sensor is certainly as accurate as any you can buy with an aftermarket gauge. It's just that the factory gauge isn't calibrated with numbers.

"Doubling up" on the sensor is probably more complicated than you want to tackle. The sensor is just a resistor, so you can read it with an ohmmeter (and consult your calibration chart, specific to your sensor, for accurate conversion of ohms to °F) The factory gauge, though, is a "hot wire" ammeter, which is excellent for this application as they are self-damping. But it's measuring current through the resistor, which can vary with changing supply voltage. (Your $6 ohmmeter has a fancy constant-current supply, so you don't have this issue). You COULD just measure the voltage on the sensor, using the existing gauge to supply the current, but you'd have a minor (10 °F?) inaccuracy due to changing battery voltage.

My 3VZE has all the temperature sensors mounted in a "coolant bypass" at the back of the block. Since I have an auto and 4wd, I have a fourth sensor (used to shut off the A/C when ECT is too high). In trucks without auto or 4wd, the bypass casting has the boss, just not drilled and tapped for the sensor. But I don't think there is anything analogous for the 22re.

 

I thought about the LCE sensor adapter, but I didn't like that it increases the number of hose clamps and possible failure points, and also presumably requires modifying the stock radiator hose. I opted to have a radiator guy add a sensor bung in my radiator, and haven't bothered to install the sensor yet. I was more interested in radiator performance, happy with the stock gauge for engine temps. I also had the pillar cluster plastic at one point, but opted to go with a PLX setup instead for additional gauges. PLX has an app and a bluetooth setup, so you can use your smartphone instead of adding gauges. But it's considerably more expensive than mechanical gauges.

 

The factory gauge is not as accurate as an aftermarket gauge. The factory gauge stays dead center for a range of temperatures. With my aftermarket gauge, I can see the engine temperature vary from warm up, to cruising, to hard pulls up hills, to light load. The factory gauge climbs up to dead center slowly from cold but reaches dead center before the aftermarket gauge shows 170 degrees. During most driving the aftermarket gauge shows between 180 and 190. The factory gauge just sits dead center. Since I installed the aftermarket gauge, I have yet to have a chance to try a hard pull up a steep hill (A/C on on a hot day) to really tax the cooling system and see how hot it gets.

I saw a thread somewhere where the guy explained how the factory guage was designed to sit dead center for a range of temperatures and how to modify it to be a straight sweep in relation to temperature.

Also, the factory gauge is often broken. There's even a sticky in this forum for fixing the factory temperature gauge. The common problem is that even when cold, the factory gauge jumps straight to dead center as soon as the key is turned to the "On" position.

 

I was going to say this, but for the sake of not being flamed on by anyone who is a die hard believer, I refrained. IMO, the electrical system is the biggest downfall of our trucks. my tempt gauge shoots to center once warmed up and just sits there. ive read the threads on how to go inside and tweak it, but to be honest I think its a giant waste of time, because for the same effort you can get a gauge that is accurate and gives you a number readout. but that's just me.