A question about wire sizes, oil temperature sensor Options

[ericoneal]

After some spirited driving lately, my oil temperature has been up in the 240-260 range, where it has never been before.
I have checked that the flaps are fully open and that there is no mouse nest, that I can see or feel, in the fan...

I recently re-installed the engine after some work and ran a large red wire from the oil sensor in the taco plate up to the top of the engine and connected it with the smaller gage green wire. Could this cause a misreading? Seems unlikely, but I'm just looking for ideas at this point.

I pulled the dipstick and its hot, but I can hold it, so I seem to think the gauge is just reading high.

[Superhawk996]

Sometimes I get thinking about stuff like this and can't let it go. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

I happened to have my engine disassembled and the taco plate handy. I also never checked my temp gauge for function and I also just bought a combo gauge that needed to be tested.

So oil temp resistor ambient resistance is about 5k Ohms and goes down in resistance as it warms. So it is inversely proportional.

High resistance in a splice would lead to the gauge displaying a temperature colder than actual. so I doubt a high resistance splice is your problem.

You could always check your temp sender calibration by measuring temp by measuring in boiling water which should be around 212F or 100C.

You might want to check your temp sensor wiring for any partial shorts to ground using a DMM. Wiring on engine side of these cars gets very brittle with age and exposure to heat. A full short to ground would peg the meter. Partial shorts can occur but are pretty rare.

w.r.t mouse nest. You also want to look under engine tin either by pulling plugs and looking though the various holes (oil temp sensor, plug holes, Cylinder head temp. Yes they can get up on top of the cylinders - don't ask me how I know.