How can I hook up a tranny temp guage to my auto tranny, and where should I get a guage?

 

I've been wondering about this too. Going to hook up a Transmission cooler. But Id like to hook up a Gauge first. (To be able to see the differance)

Anyone have a write up on this ? or any Info ?

 

I've engineered many instrumentation setups for new chassis, and can give you some tips. Unless you can find a kit out there (highly doubtful) you'll have to do it yourself. First off, (this should be obvious) be sure you get a sender and gauge that are compatible, i.e. 0-300 degress for both or 100-400 degrees for both. Using the wrong sender makes it all kind of a waste of time... About the sender location. Typically in a car the sender would go in the trans pan. This is fairly easy, since you could pull the pan and take it to a shop and have them weld a threaded boss in for the sender. We prefer to put the sender at the outlet to the trans cooler (put a tee in the line.) Neat thing about this location is it tells you how hard the trans is working. If the temp out of the converter is too high, I'd rather know that than simply the temp of the fluid in the pan after it's been through the cooler. Why? Because even a few minutes of overheat will break down the fluid, and you wouldn't know this with pan temperature only. Temperatures in the pan will run up to around 200 degrees. Temperatures at the converter-out port will run up to 300 degrees. Interesting note is that you can run all day at 300 degrees, but can detroy the trans quickly at any higher temps than that! 300 is the magic number.

Can't tell you where to buy a gauge, but I would start with Jegs and Summit's catalogs. Should be able to find a variety of small temp gauges there.

Wiring is simple as can be. The gauge will need ground and ignition. A wire will run from the gauge to the sender. The sender must be grounded (either through it's mounting or with a 2-prong unit and a ground wire.)

Good luck!