as some of you may have read im having intermittant issues with my overdrive not working in my 95 dakota. well, it seems that it is definatly temperature related. for instance in the mornings its been between 65 and 70 degrees. well during my 20 mile commute to work the od will not engage. however in the afternoons when i get off work its right about 90 degrees outside but i can get the od to engage within a few minutes and usually stay turned on for the rest of the day. i did notice that during the moring trips my temp gauge will only go up to about 1/8 to 1/4 inch past the low line of the normal however on the trips home the temp gauge will read straight up (half way between the low and high line of the normal) so my question to you is, where is the gauge supposed to read at operating temperature on these things. im wondering if i dont have a bad thermostat thats stuck open. which from what i read would cause the overdrive to stay disengaged.

 

My temp gauge stays between 1/4—1/2. With a 180 thermostat the gauge will stay at the bottom leg of the arch.

 

Ya possible a bad thermostat as well as a bad coolant sensor. There are 2 one for the gauge 1 for the PCM replace the PCM one.

 

If the sensor was bad wouldnt it throw a check engine code? There are no trouble codes right now

 

Not all bad sensors set off codes.

 

My overdrive stopped working for almost a year and I finally fixed it last week.
There was a plug on the throttle body (I think for the TPS) that got some mud inside. Cleaned it out and problem fixed. My truck would also have a high idle every once in a while and it fixed that too.

If that doesn't work just replace the coolant temp sensor since it's only like $15. Make sure you replace the one for the PCM.
Good luck!

 

will i need to drain the cooling system to shance this sensor out?

 

You don't have to, but it keeps the coolant from flooding on you when you pull out the sensor.

 

well, back to the drawing board. changing that sensor didnt made a difference. guess ill change the thermostat now and hope that does the trick. this morning for instance its 70 degrees. and the needle didnt get up to a quarter past the low line of normal until i had gone about 6 miles or so and hitting 3 stop lights.