ok so today i was trying to hook up my oil temp and trany temp gauges, and i cant get them to work. i tested it and all the wiring is right, the problem is that the sending unit is supposed to ground its self out and since there both threaded into aluminum they dont. but even when i put a ground wire onto the sender i still cant get them to work, my oil pressure and water temp that go into the block both work fine...

i cant figure it out... any idea's?

Why do you think aluminum isn't a ground?

The senders work by making a resistance, do the gauges just not move, or are they all the way to one side or the other?





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they just stay at zero... for some reason i though aluminum didn't ground. but either way i don't know whats up with them

Try touching the sensor wire to ground. The senders don't create voltages, they create resistances, so if you ground it, the gauge should go all the way to the side. If not, then its a wiring problem and you have a break in the wire somewhere.





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ya thats why i know its not a wiring problem, i grounded the sender wire and the needles move up like there supposed to, so then i got to thinking that maby aluminum wasn't a ground but aparently im just crazy

Well my head is aluminum, my extension pipe is cast iron that T's to my two sending units, and both of mine work just fine.

Can you swap your water temp sender out for your tranny or oil temp? They should both have the same resistance values...





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well aparently they take a realy long time to start working the first time? i drove around for like half an hour, get home still thought it wasn't working, then i noticed the oil temp one was juuuuust barly above zero so i keept driving until they both warmed up, seems to be working fine now tho they just took forever to start moving.

^ Mine is like that too, 120 is bottom of the scale on my oil temp sensor, and I've never seen it go much over that, not even the width of the needle.





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oil temps take a long time to heat up whe its cold

Trannies do too, especially when highway driving, city driving it goes up pretty quick, but on the highway there is a lot more air going over the tranny cooler so it takes much longer to go up.