tathan

Started my 96 RA the other day for the first time in a few months (been in many bits) and the dash temp gauge is off the scale at the top end as soon as ignition comes on. The fans usually start as well.

The car starts and runs ok, but soon deteriorates into spluttering and won't idle. However, if I lift the revs to 2000rpm, the needle IMMEDIATELY drops to something consistent with the aftermarket water temp gauge and the running clears up ok. As soon as the revs drop below 2000rpm the gauge shoots back up to max and car runs badly again. I assume the same sender is feeding both dash and ECU?

Any ideas? If it was consistently reading wrong, I'd assume the sender was fubar or shorting, but the way it's ok over 2k (and all the way up) is confusing me!

alcazar

iTrader: (2)

Hello mate, there are TWO senders for water temp on OE cars, one for the gauge, with only one wire going to it, and another beside it with iirc three?

You may also have ANOTHER if you have an aftermarket gauge.

First job is to check wiring to all three, look for chafing, bad/corroded connections etc.

widdows

like Alcazar said, poss loose/bad connection on sender or sender may have been damaged when you had it in bits?
also check engine earth as bad earths can cause niggly problems such as these

tathan

Thanks for the ideas guys, the car is at a remote location and I'm going over to work on it tomorrow so I've got my starting points and will see how it goes