sleeper
Former LOD President
I am having some problems with the temperature gauge in my '93 Blazer (vortec 4.3, if that matters).
The sensor has one wire going to it and grounds to the block. The gauge was not functioning correctly, so i replaced the sender.
I checked to make sure the wire to the sender is getting power, it is, i checked to make sure it's grounded good, that's not the problem (but i have an extra wire going from it directly to the battery ground anyway).
When i ground the wire that goes to the sensor the gauge shoots all the way up. The new sensor is not an open circuit either, it works to some extent, because when i took it out of the block, hooked it up, and hit it with a mapgas torch, the gauge shot up.
The truck is getting warm enough to kick good heat. The upper radiator hose gets nice and firm when the engine has been running for a while, which leads me to believe that there is a thermostat in there.
I can let the truck idle all day long and the temp gauge won't budge. I took the truck for a spin yesterday and flogged the hell out of it, and i got the gauge to move, but barely. It was indicating maybe 120 degrees, and i drove it around at WOT for awhile, in low gears, doing all i could to heat it up. I also let it idle for a bit over 5 minutes with the upper radiator hose clamped with a pair of vice grips, the gauge still didn't budge.
So does anyone else have any ideas? I think my next step is taking the new sender back and telling them they gave me a bad one. I've checked everything, and that's the only thing i can think of that could be bad. Is too high of a resistance, without being a totally open circuit, a common defect for a temperature sender?
The sensor has one wire going to it and grounds to the block. The gauge was not functioning correctly, so i replaced the sender.
I checked to make sure the wire to the sender is getting power, it is, i checked to make sure it's grounded good, that's not the problem (but i have an extra wire going from it directly to the battery ground anyway).
When i ground the wire that goes to the sensor the gauge shoots all the way up. The new sensor is not an open circuit either, it works to some extent, because when i took it out of the block, hooked it up, and hit it with a mapgas torch, the gauge shot up.
The truck is getting warm enough to kick good heat. The upper radiator hose gets nice and firm when the engine has been running for a while, which leads me to believe that there is a thermostat in there.
I can let the truck idle all day long and the temp gauge won't budge. I took the truck for a spin yesterday and flogged the hell out of it, and i got the gauge to move, but barely. It was indicating maybe 120 degrees, and i drove it around at WOT for awhile, in low gears, doing all i could to heat it up. I also let it idle for a bit over 5 minutes with the upper radiator hose clamped with a pair of vice grips, the gauge still didn't budge.
So does anyone else have any ideas? I think my next step is taking the new sender back and telling them they gave me a bad one. I've checked everything, and that's the only thing i can think of that could be bad. Is too high of a resistance, without being a totally open circuit, a common defect for a temperature sender?