805cut

Whats up guys, cars a 1970 cutlass 350 i believe. Its got a set of dakota digital gauges in it.. I like the gauges and i was told that everything read fine except the spedo and fule. But im not to sure on who put the gauges in or how much they even knew about what they were doing. Everything seems to be fine except the oil pressure its always been real low like 6 when i start it and about 17 at 1500 rpms.

Today i poped the hood and looked at what i thought must be the electrical sensors that run from the motor to the gauges, wiggled one of them took it off cleaned the connections went for a ride around the block and the oil gauge was around 45-47 but shortly after went back to its low numbers after 10 miles or so.

Sorry about this book of a post but can any of you tell me what these sensors are for? There both towards the front of the motor on top.

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This is the one i messed with cleaned (seemed to help fpr a little)...
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are these for my gauges? Could they be bad and need to be replaced? Or do i just have absolutly no clue as to what im talking about?

thanks!

MDchanic

The middle picture is your water temperature sensor.

The bottom picture is your oil pressure sensor.

You should get some known-good gauges and put this to rest.
If you were driving around with low oil pressure, it would be no laughing matter.

- Eric

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There is also another sensor of some sort, on my car its been clipped and is not conected to anything its right across from the water temp sensor on the other side of the upper rd hose. any ideas ?

Thank you and agreed, but the gauges are pretty nice and look good in th car brand new this set is right under 700$ not that that makes it better then anything thats out there, but i know there not trash there just hooked up wrong..

I dont think there is anything wrong with the car as far as oil pressure or temp as my friend who drove the car before me drove it for a while and never had any issues but he seemed to not mind not knowing what the car was doing. I DO! and im just trying to rule everything out befor i go onto ripping out a set of gauges that not only cost a pretty penny but look great to!

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i just hate electrical, any recomedation on analog gauges if i do go down that road?

thank you so much for your help... im learning here, someone neglected this car and i want to get her back to RIGHT not just "running" so any input is greatly appreciated!

compedgemarine

call Dakota Digital and talk to the tech dept. if you have the wrong sensors nothing will work right. the gauges are looking for a certain ohm reading and the wrong ones will let the gauge work just not in the correct range. they are also sensative to corrosion. if the connections are not clean and tight it will sense the wrong ohm reading. that is probably why the fuel gauge doesnt work. same with the speedo. it requires a electronic sender to be installed on the trans and then it has to be programed.

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YES! i tried to calibrate the speedo, your supposed to drive a marked mile with it on certin setting... its supossed to count the pulses made by the motor i just saw on dakotas website they have pulse gens. made me wondr if i dnt have one cause when i drove that mile and hit set the msg display showed "to low"

i tried calling, was on hold to long so i hung up lol ill give it another shot along with replacing that oil sender as well i just dont know what size it needs to be as far as threading it in 1/8 npt or something like that ?

just checked and the car dose have the pulse gen. idk whats going on with the speedo right now my main concern is getting the oil and water temp working correctly pshhh!