944 LS1 conversion temp gauge not working

Hi all. I'm new here, I recently became the owner of a 944 LS1 conversion. Engine is from a 2002 Camaro SS.

It has a couple little things I'm trying to sort out, one of them being that the temp gauge doesn't work, it doesn't budge from the bottom of the scale.

The PO had put headers on the car shortly before I bought it and he says the temp gauge hasn't worked since.

The temp sender/sensor is on the driver's side of the head, inches from the headers, so something might have happened to the sender during installation of the headers.

However, the wires look completely fine and when I unplug the temp sender wires from the sender while the car is running the engine almost stalls out and then comes back up to idle, so I figure the temp sender must be working and sending some kind of signal to the engine. (Which is kind of weird because I thought I read somewhere that that temp sender only sends output to the temp gauge and not the PCM?)

Anyway, any ideas?

The sender for the gauge should be in the passenger side head near the firewall. The one in the drivers side head in the front does go to the PCM.

Arthropraxis wrote:The sender for the gauge should be in the passenger side head near the firewall. The one in the drivers side head in the front does go to the PCM.

Well, there you go. I went to look at it and the wire is disconected, looks like maybe the plug to the sender is missing/broken.

Thanks!

acorad wrote:

Arthropraxis wrote:The sender for the gauge should be in the passenger side head near the firewall. The one in the drivers side head in the front does go to the PCM.

Well, there you go. I went to look at it and the wire is disconected, looks like maybe the plug to the sender is missing/broken.

Thanks!

Take a pic of the sender.

Dawgz83948 wrote:Take a pic of the sender.

How's this, it's the sensor/plug with the brass nub in the top right of the pic. The wire end that's supposed to be connected to it has a spade-type connector so it doesn't mate to the brass nub on the sensor. I think there must be a missing connector between the wire and the sensor:[img][You must be registered and logged in to see this image.][/img]

acorad wrote:

Dawgz83948 wrote:Take a pic of the sender.

How's this, it's the sensor/plug with the brass nub in the top right of the pic. The wire end that's supposed to be connected to it has a spade-type connector so it doesn't mate to the brass nub on the sensor. I think there must be a missing connector between the wire and the sensor:

Have you tried putting the spade connect on it? It should work on that style sensor. You should try pressing it on where the flat part is on the flat part of the spade connector (sideways). At worse go buy an aligator clip and crimp it on the wire.

Yup, it slides right on and my temp gauge now works fine. I've never seen a connector like that before, I feel like such a newbie. Thanks, Dawg!