As title said, I need to hook up my oil temp gauge after about 2 years on stands. I can't find the wire that goes to the taco plate temp sensor. It may have broken off the harness. I re-covered the portion of the harness from the exit of the firewall upward. Did I maybe cover up the temp wire, or does it come from somewhere else?
Thanks, JoeO

The oil temp gauge wire goes from the taco plate to the relay board via the engine harness. From there the trace crosses the relay board to the connector to the cabin harness. The end of the wire should be somewhere under the carpet under the console by the shifter.

1. what year is your car? early cars didn't have the wire in the harness ...

2. if you have a later model car, the wire exits the main loom right under the battery tray. (on top of the engine!)
it's green/black and has one of those large plastic connectors on it that accepts a female spade connector.

Andy

wrong on all accounts!
Andy

It's one wire, run it thru the tunnel along the loom and to your console, hook it to

the gauge. I did it on my 71 and my 72, no big deal.

i agree w/Andy if you car is a later car but add the fact that there is a wire from the taco plate to the connector found under the battery tray that he describes. my fuzzy recollection is that the wire is a solid green wire but the color of course won't matter. and i agree with the other poster that if you don't have the connector under the battery tray as part of the harness, you could just run a dedicated wire thru the tunnel for the gauge.

Well at least I'm hitting 100%.

Hmm. I guess 2 wrongs make a right. I hooked up the oil sender on my 71 using the wire I found under the carpet by the shifter. This wire went to the wire harness connected to the relay board. The trace went across the relay board to an unpopulated pin on the engine harness. I added the pin and ran down to the oil temp sender.

What is the right way to run this wire?

Here is my post on this topic. My wire was green and exited the wire loom below the battery. I would guess that older cars that weren't pre-wired for the center console may not have this wire.

yes, i would think so. i like to use "unused" wires whenever i can. sure beats running a new wire through the center tunnel ...

however, my point was that that is not the factory wire for the oil-temp gauge/sender ...
Andy

Thanks everyone. I will check the wires below the battery to see where one should be exiting the bundle. JoeO

Here is the schematic from my 70-72 Shop Manual by Carbooks. The Haynes manual also has this same schematic page. My 71 was wired like this diagram. It shows item 42 to be "Oil Temperature Indicator (optional)". It is wired to the relay panel on pin 3. Pin 3 on my 71's engine harness was empty so I added the wire to the sender here.

Pin 3 from the engine harness runs over the relay board to pin 6 to the cabin harness. The schematic shows this wire terminating beside the combinational gauge. In my car, this wire was under the carpet beside the shifter.

Don't know if the factory did this or dealer option but schematic and car agreed. This made it very easy to connect the oil temp sender.

learn something new every day. i didn't know they were an option on early cars ...

looks like the optional install used a wire going to the relay board. i'll have to check on that. i know my '70 did not have an extra wire on the relay board for a temp gauge ...
Andy

what was the cut off?