Oil temp gauge installed

[Gaz64]

Originally Posted by cycleguy55

Your situation seems baffling to me.

I have a VDO temp gauge and sensor, and my readings don't vary whether I'm driving or stopped. As far as I know, the portion of the sender that actually takes the reading is inside the oil pan and not exposed to air flow.

Looking at the SpeedHut sender it looks like it would be totally immersed as well:



I suspect there's something else going on. Does the wire have a solid connection to the sender? Could it be moving around or grounding against something while the vehicle is in motion, but not when stopped? Looking at the impedance / temperature chart, zero impedance (e.g. grounded) would display cold on the gauge.

Looking at the impedance / temperature chart, zero impedance (e.g. grounded) would display HOT on the gauge.

Open circuit, (high resistance) on the sender wire would display COLD.

Gary

[Texasdoc]

Originally Posted by Gaz64

Looking at the impedance / temperature chart, zero impedance (e.g. grounded) would display HOT on the gauge.

Open circuit, (high resistance) on the sender wire would display COLD.

Gary

Right. I don't think it is electrical at this point. I'm pretty sure I am just too low on the oil level. When moving (RPM above idle) my HV oil pump pushes enough oil to the top of the motor so the sensor is uncovered. Therefore I am reading the temp of the air in the oil pan. When stopped at an idle, enough oil comes back down into the pan to cover the sensor so it goes back up on the gauge. I'm going to put more oil in to see how that works. If it still isn't working well, I'll start chasing electrical gremlins. It is pretty much plug and play. Each end of the supplied cable has push and click connectors.

I spoke to Canton. They said this is an 8 qt pan. Minus what would go in the filter.

[cycleguy55]

Originally Posted by Texasdoc

Right. I don't think it is electrical at this point. I'm pretty sure I am just too low on the oil level. When moving (RPM above idle) my HV oil pump pushes enough oil to the top of the motor so the sensor is uncovered. Therefore I am reading the temp of the air in the oil pan. When stopped at an idle, enough oil comes back down into the pan to cover the sensor so it goes back up on the gauge. I'm going to put more oil in to see how that works. If it still isn't working well, I'll start chasing electrical gremlins. It is pretty much plug and play. Each end of the supplied cable has push and click connectors.

I spoke to Canton. They said this is an 8 qt pan. Minus what would go in the filter.

So, I take it then that 'system capacity' is 8 quarts - ~7 in the pan and the rest in the filter. You were running 2 quarts under that, so hopefully this solves the problem and gets the gauge reading as it should.