Chimaera temperature sender

[pmobbs]

Hi Chaps - I bought a 1999 Chimaera 400 about two months ago. Love it. It's in great shape and it's a car my wife will ride in - she doesn't like sitting in the Caterham! I know there are some long and helpful threads on PHs about the temperature gauge and Uncle Fester has contributed an article here - http://www.hsv.org.uk/topic.asp?t=731467&f=8&a... that gives the part numbers for a temperature sender and thread adapter that might allow the existing gauge to give accurate temperature readings by fitting a TT3001-8N sender and a thread adapter (both from Speedycables) into the Rover sender hole. Fester wisely suggests sending the gauge to Speedycables so they can check it will work properly. I don't really want to extract the gauge from the dash and guess I wouldn't have to if someone has already tried this sender with a gauge from a Chimaera of a similar age. I thought I'd post this in the hope someone has tried Fester's fix on a '99 Chimaera with the white gauges and silver bezel......??? Long shot but thanks in advance for any help anyone is able to give.

[chris1972]

pmobbs said:

Hi Chaps - I bought a 1999 Chimaera 400 about two months ago. Love it. It's in great shape and it's a car my wife will ride in - she doesn't like sitting in the Caterham! I know there are some long and helpful threads on PHs about the temperature gauge and Uncle Fester has contributed an article here - http://www.hsv.org.uk/topic.asp?t=731467&f=8&a... that gives the part numbers for a temperature sender and thread adapter that might allow the existing gauge to give accurate temperature readings by fitting a TT3001-8N sender and a thread adapter (both from Speedycables) into the Rover sender hole. Fester wisely suggests sending the gauge to Speedycables so they can check it will work properly. I don't really want to extract the gauge from the dash and guess I wouldn't have to if someone has already tried this sender with a gauge from a Chimaera of a similar age. I thought I'd post this in the hope someone has tried Fester's fix on a '99 Chimaera with the white gauges and silver bezel......??? Long shot but thanks in advance for any help anyone is able to give.

The TVR Temp sender is located in the base of the manifold. At best this sits in a shallow pool of water or partially submerged. The readings do not correlate to anything the ECU reads. It is better to use the Landrover temperature sender that resides next to the ECU temperature sender for a more accurate reading. The Landrover sender isn't calibrated to the TVR gauge though. You can use one of these: http://www.spiyda.com/magento/index.php/fuel-gauge... to calibrate the gauge to the sender. It is a good idea to use the Rovergauge software and lead to read what temperature the ECU is seeing, so you can calibrate the sender at the same time and match them both.

[pmobbs]

Hi Chris, Yes, the Fester solution puts a sender that matches the TVR gauge into the Rover hole at the top of the engine making the cruddy TVR sender behind the dizzy redundant. If the sender he recommends matches the gauge (and that is the question)then the TVR gauge should report the true temperature from a fully submerged and matched sender - the perfect solution. At present the readings from the TVR sender appear to be related to sunspot frequency or some other random event - sits at 65 while cruising rushes to 85/90 in traffic and generally wavers around. I think I have all the air out of the system. An IR thermometer shows all is well but on a long journey of the kind I often undertake - South of France and across the Spanish border, it would be nice to know the real temperature! Considered the resistor plus Rover sender option but like the idea of something that is accurate across the range. If I can't find a sender that matches the gauge I'll go down the Temperature Gauge Wizard route using the Rover sender. Thanks for getting back to me.

[chris1972]

pmobbs said:

Hi Chris, Yes, the Fester solution puts a sender that matches the TVR gauge into the Rover hole at the top of the engine making the cruddy TVR sender behind the dizzy redundant. If the sender he recommends matches the gauge (and that is the question)then the TVR gauge should report the true temperature from a fully submerged and matched sender - the perfect solution. At present the readings from the TVR sender appear to be related to sunspot frequency or some other random event - sits at 65 while cruising rushes to 85/90 in traffic and generally wavers around. I think I have all the air out of the system. An IR thermometer shows all is well but on a long journey of the kind I often undertake - South of France and across the Spanish border, it would be nice to know the real temperature! Considered the resistor plus Rover sender option but like the idea of something that is accurate across the range. If I can't find a sender that matches the gauge I'll go down the Temperature Gauge Wizard route using the Rover sender. Thanks for getting back to me.

No worries. I'd be interested to see if you can find a sender to match the TVR gauge, so please post your results (so would quite a few on here!).

[Harrytsg]

For what it's worth, my gauge reads about 10 degrees lower than my ecu (via Ecumate), so I have set my 2 stage cooling to maintain temps relevant to the ecu.