Temperature Sender

[njsteve]

Just took the car out for a test drive. I hooked up the mechanical gauge in the sender location. It's about 97 degrees outside at the moment and the car ran around 190 degrees most of the trip with the A/C on full blast.

Once you sit and idle for an extended period or shut the car down, the temp really spikes (230) but I think that is due more to the sender location on Pontiacs that is right between the two exhaust port tunnels on the HO cylinder heads. So actually, the heat soak from the exhaust manifolds may play a major part in some of the high readings when there is no airflow. The heat soak may be heating the outside of the temp sender more than the coolant is heating the sender bulb inside the cyl head.