16v water temp gauge - it's all gone terribly wrong

[davidwort 0]

Wierd problem with water temp gauge on my 16v.

 

Firstly, two weeks ago I took the water temp and fuel gauge off the main unit to put a red filter in the MFA display, all slots back together fine no problems whatsoever for the last 2 weeks and 400 miles.

 

Couple of days ago the LED warning lamp on the water temp gauge flashes a couple of times eratically(not regular pulsing), then stops, gauge reading is still fine, this happened near the end of my 20 mile journey to work.

On the way home it does it again, a few more flashes this time, again near the end of my journey when the car is fully warmed up.

Third journey, same again but more flashes and this time the needle suddenly wavers up to near max and then back to normal. Does this a few times with the LED flashing even more. Eventually on my fourth journey the gauge drops low as wel,l and eventually drops to nothing.

Oil temp has been perfectly normal all the time.

Now the car runs fine but I have no reading on temp gauge at all and the LED pulses regularly, with occasional 30 sec or so pauses???

 

Thought I'd try swapping the sender connections as the 16v has 3 identical senders(all have same part no.) for the ECU, gauge etc.. all on same part of head, as I thought perhaps the gauge one may have shorted/died.

But no joy, looks like all the sender is fine.

 

Anyone have any idea what else might be the problem?

Could it be the gauge unit itself?

 

cheers,

David.

[corradophil 3]

Strange, all I can suggest is check/clean every connection including the multipin one for the instruments, and check the voltage stabiliser on the instrument panel.

[Henny 0]

It could well be the wiring onto the clocks... Check the connector is on fully and the wires aren't snagged on anything... ;)

[davidwort 0]

It could well be the wiring onto the clocks... Check the connector is on fully and the wires aren't snagged on anything... ;)

 

solved it pretty much:

 

It was a broken wire in the loom close to the sender on the head, the wiring gets very brittle and corroded where exposed and not in the black plastic sheathing, I had to solder a new length (about 15cms) into the loom.

Gauge is much better now, but disturbing it seems to have affected the level it sits at when warmed up, and I've had one or two erratic flashes of the warning LED, so I may have slightly damaged or got a less than perfect connection in the gauge unit on the dash, I took it out (water and petrol unit) from the main cluster as it just slides out when you've pulled off the needles and fashia.

 

David.