Re: temp gauge not responding

["SSE Bonneville" <sse_bonneville@xxxx>]

I havent got a shop manual for a DMC yet or have the temp sensor 
infont of me but usually engine temp sensors have 2 wires. They are 
usually located in the radiator on the side passages. But then again 
this is a somewhat foreign design. The way you read the average 
american car temp sensor is with a Ohm meter, not a volt meter. The 
average reading with the car cold should be somewhere around 3-5 ohms. 
The resistance changes with the temperager. If you start the car and 
let it warm up and the resistance does not increase you could have a 
faulty temp sensor. I'm not sure about 81-83 cars but without that 
reading that might be telling the car that the engine is not warming 
up and it will dump more fuel in (to richen the mixture). When it does 
that for a long period of time it can destroy your catalatic 
converter...
However reading that your temp gauge died so fast I wouldnt think that 
it wasnt your engine temp sensor itself but rather your guage. You 
could of had a rodent in there that nawed on some wires or you lost a 
connection somewhere. If you got a wiring diagram use a meter to check 
all your connections for your eng temp sen.
I hope some of that helped,
Sean


--- In dmcnews@xxxx, "K Creason" <dmc4687@xxxx> wrote:
> My temp gauge suddenly died this afternoon. It points straight down 
and
> doesn't quiver.