Fitted marks quad gauge today, when turning ignition on the temp gauge goes straight to max, checked the sender wire and that's ok. What do I check next?

Start wiith the wire on the back of the guage. See if it is grounded from there. (probably is) Find a ground somewhere between guage and sending unit.

Sounds like the wire from the sender to gauge is grounded somewhere.

or one of the (+) wires is touching the gauge at the sender feed

Check the sender wire for grounding. Check

check the wiring at the gauge. Check

no probs there, what next?

go back and do it again, you missed something

Did you check the sender wire all the way from the sender to gauge???
Maybe something inside the sender is shorted???

Do the gauges not fail? It's 100% a wiring problem then?

If the gauge combo you got was new, then I'd not think the guage is faulty. I still think there is some wiring problem.....

Check the resistance of the sender .... If it is 0, the guage will peg. The guage reads resistance ... the sender is variable resistance according to temperature.

That said, if it pegs on the turn of the key, generally, as others have said, the wire from the sender is fully grounded somewhere.

And make sure you have the wires connected correctly ... "G" is guage, not ground.

On Marks fully wired gauges? Does anyone have a link to his wiring diagrams/labelling to be sure they haven't wired it in the wrong way...

"G" stands for the German word "Geber", which translates into Sending Unit ...
Andy

If you disconnect the wire from the sending unit, the gauge should read cold. this will give you some indication if your gauge is working.

Also, if you have a potentiometer laying around, connect this between the gauge and ground and twist the pot. At some point, the gauge will go from cold to hot if it's working correctly.

UPDATE -

On the back of the gauge there are two wires + and S.

Am I right in thinking that + is +12 and S is sender??

If so....... as soon as I connect the +12v to + the gauge goes straight to MAX. Even if the sender wire is disconnected.

what about ground? Is there a connection for that anywhere that you see?

I got marks Pre-wired gauge and the fuel and volt gauge work perfectly, so surely it's grounded on the pre wired loom along with the other gauges..


Seems weird that as soon as it's given +12 it goes straight to max

I'm having the same type problem with my fuel gauge. As soon as the key is turned on it goes straight to full. It's with my Fuel Safe fuel cell sender and gauge. I haven't had time to dive into it yet.

you mean it WAS the wire? shocking



I did the same thing to my CHT, it went straight to max with the engine not even running... swapped the wires, and back to normal. hence my comment above.

On my single center console temp guage, I had failed to ground it properly and the result was to peg the gauge at hot after about a minute of running, I guess oil temp was just beginning to actuate the sender and as soon as it connected at all (the sender is a variable ground), the needle pegged.

I think it has to be the grounding...

Oi Cheeky! Nope still not fixed yet. Been chatting to Mark via email and he thinks the gauge may be too tight in the housing, so we are backing it off to see if it's grounding internally..

Well I'm getting the car back from the mechanic tomorrow and he hasn't managed to sort it

The amazing thing is that it's one of Marks brand new quad gauges and the oil pressure doesn't work either?

To say I'm annoyed is an understatement!

Make sure the gauge case is grounded, The gauges are mounted in a rubber
ring and they must be mounted, a quick test is turn on the background lights
they should work if the cases are grounded.

Ok picked the car up and after two minutes I got them both to work...

So not having had oil pressure or temperature gauges before to frighted myself, what pressure should a 1.7l engine push out and what is the ideal running temp?

So glad it all works now, thankyou all for your help so far

what was the problem?

I still can't get my CHT right

Honestly I don't know - I removed the gauge, checked all the connections and put it back to go and investigate the fittings in the engine bay, started the engine first to see what happens voltage wise and they pop into life!

It's sitting top centre oil temperature and pressure is 40 at tickover, dropping a bit to around 25 whlst on the move..

that sounds "ok" but not great. I know mine is about 55 when cold(almost too much) and drops to about 40 warmed up I'll let an oil pressure guru speak up and tell me how wrong I am tho.

More Problems...

No wonder my mechanic couldn't work it out!

The gauges are in the wrong positions on the dial....

I thought I was getting some weird readings yesterday, so had a fiddle again this morning.. the voltage and fuel gauges work perfectly so I had a quick thought.. What if it had been put together wrong? So I plugged the pressure sender into the temp gauge and the temp sender into the pressure gauge.....

The gauges are now giving readings I would expect to see. The pressure is about 30 psi on idle, rising to 50-55 psi at 3000 rpm, and the temperature rises gradually (I haven't taken it for a spin yet, but will later....)

SO the gauges have been improperly labelled up.. or the gauge mechanisms put in the wrong 1/4 of Marks gauge..

Mark??