My temp gauge just died and I'm not sure what to check. It just dropped all the way to the bottom left and makes no difference key on or off.

 

I would start by pulling the wire loose from the sensor. Have someone sit in the truck and turn the key to on. The guage should read cold. Then with the key on, touch the sensor wire to the engine (ground) guage should go to hot. If it does, the sensor is bad.

 

One note - the temp gauge sending unit is the one underneath the compressor, not the one to the car's left of the thermostat housing.

Here's a PDF showing where it is as a drawing, as an attachment.

RwP

 

OK. I grounded that wire from the sending unit and the gauge never moved. Guess I'll have to start tracing wires or install an aftermarket gauge. I have cooling issues with this truck already and I don't want to cook the engine. Thanks for the help.

 

Grab a copy of the factory service manual. There's a nice writeup to go through on how to trace down exactly where a bad gauge is happening.

One more thing you can do is to pick up a used cluster out of the boneyard, and just swap that portion of the cluster not the whole cluster. It just needs to be the same cluster (5 or 6 gauge)

RwP

 

I've got this manual, but I don't see anything about tracing gauge problems. I see how to test the gauge and how to replace the cluster so I'll start there.


As far as junk yards, they're limited around here. There are two local and not a single first gen Dakota in either one. Any idea where I can find a cross reference for what else would work?

 

Test the gauge, and when you get done, be sure to put the needle at the half way mark (half way between C and H). There's a chance that something happened that drove the needle out of its normal range and just tweaking it enough to get it back into range may fix it.

RwP

 

That was the ticket. I disassembled today and as soon as I touched the needle it jumped right back up where it's supposed to be.

Thanks