Help getting front off water temp gauge
Discussion
Anyone ever taken the front off a water temperature gauge on a cerb.
Am struggling a bit as I don't want to break anything.
Having (fingers crossed) got my temperature problems finally under control the needle promptly falls off the front of the water gauge and is now sitting laughing at me at the bottom of the gauge.
Don't really want to be flying round brands wondering what temperature the car is at
Nothing on the back seems to release it and although it rotates there doesn't seem to be any way of prising it off without breaking it.
Am on holiday from tuesday to friday so no want to sort it out before tuesday.
Am struggling a bit as I don't want to break anything.
Having (fingers crossed) got my temperature problems finally under control the needle promptly falls off the front of the water gauge and is now sitting laughing at me at the bottom of the gauge.
Don't really want to be flying round brands wondering what temperature the car is at
Nothing on the back seems to release it and although it rotates there doesn't seem to be any way of prising it off without breaking it.
Am on holiday from tuesday to friday so no want to sort it out before tuesday.
If it's anything like the Chim ones you should be able to carefully prise the ally surround from behind until you can pop it off - you will have to bend the metal. Depending on how carefully you can do this you might get it to go back on as good as new.
Personally though I'd be tempted to box it up and send it off to Caerbont, who will do a pukka job if you ask them nicely (and cross their palms, obviously). As a guide, they charged me £30 to open up a water temp guage and put an oil can logo on it, if memory serves.
Personally though I'd be tempted to box it up and send it off to Caerbont, who will do a pukka job if you ask them nicely (and cross their palms, obviously). As a guide, they charged me £30 to open up a water temp guage and put an oil can logo on it, if memory serves.
julian64 said:
Anyone ever taken the front off a water temperature gauge on a cerb.
Am struggling a bit as I don't want to break anything.
Having (fingers crossed) got my temperature problems finally under control the needle promptly falls off the front of the water gauge and is now sitting laughing at me at the bottom of the gauge.
Don't really want to be flying round brands wondering what temperature the car is at
Nothing on the back seems to release it and although it rotates there doesn't seem to be any way of prising it off without breaking it.
Am on holiday from tuesday to friday so no want to sort it out before tuesday.
Julian,Am struggling a bit as I don't want to break anything.
Having (fingers crossed) got my temperature problems finally under control the needle promptly falls off the front of the water gauge and is now sitting laughing at me at the bottom of the gauge.
Don't really want to be flying round brands wondering what temperature the car is at
Nothing on the back seems to release it and although it rotates there doesn't seem to be any way of prising it off without breaking it.
Am on holiday from tuesday to friday so no want to sort it out before tuesday.
When you say that you have got your temperature problems under control, do you mean that you managed to get your gauge to read more accurately as I know that you were investigating why it started to over-read so much?
If so, I'd be interested to know what you did.
Thanks.
VictorMeldrew said:
If it's anything like the Chim ones you should be able to carefully prise the ally surround from behind until you can pop it off - you will have to bend the metal. Depending on how carefully you can do this you might get it to go back on as good as new.
Personally though I'd be tempted to box it up and send it off to Caerbont, who will do a pukka job if you ask them nicely (and cross their palms, obviously). As a guide, they charged me £30 to open up a water temp guage and put an oil can logo on it, if memory serves.
This is how I get the bezel off my speedo to 'assist' it forwards every now and then. I guess what Julian is trying to avoid is removing the temperature gauge and the capillary tube etc. all a bit more involved than an electric gauge.Personally though I'd be tempted to box it up and send it off to Caerbont, who will do a pukka job if you ask them nicely (and cross their palms, obviously). As a guide, they charged me £30 to open up a water temp guage and put an oil can logo on it, if memory serves.
Nope, just to calibrate the dial myself in the car.
You see the capillary tube full of ether is sensitive to its environment. No amount of calibration at cairbont is going to help.
For a few weeks I played about with removing the business end of the water gauge and putting it in various hot water to test its accuracy. After sorting myself a calibration graph of what it read vs what the acutal temperature was, this would all go to pot once the engine was running and the manifolds had affected the tube.
The reason my water gauge initially suddenly gained 10 degrees was because I had an airlock on the water rail the capillary tube was fixed to. This lead to a hotspot on one part of the water rail which affected the capillary tube and subsequently the water reading. Its just that daft. I spotted it by using an infrared thermometer. The water temperature was therefore unlinear because it was responding to bothe the real water temp and then the steam trapped in the water rail when the engine got hot enough.
The gauge was therefore unlinear compared to the electrical water temp via the ECU. Sorting out that headache to satisfy myself I had the right answer took a couple of weeks.
Even after removing the airlock I still wasn't happy, although it improved somewhat. The answer ended up being to reroute the capillary tube underneath the bodypanels of the car to insulate it from the engine temp. Followed by calibrating the dial by removing the face and moving the needle pointer to correspond with what the ECU is saying. Having taken the dial apart there is no other calibration system apart from the amount of ether in the tube. I assume therefore that calibration at cairbont is simply the same. I did look at an electric water temp, but no company I could find made an electrical dual gauge.
Finally however, I'm at the point where my water gauge over the past month or so has faithfully followed what the ECU is recording so I'm now happy.
You see the capillary tube full of ether is sensitive to its environment. No amount of calibration at cairbont is going to help.
For a few weeks I played about with removing the business end of the water gauge and putting it in various hot water to test its accuracy. After sorting myself a calibration graph of what it read vs what the acutal temperature was, this would all go to pot once the engine was running and the manifolds had affected the tube.
The reason my water gauge initially suddenly gained 10 degrees was because I had an airlock on the water rail the capillary tube was fixed to. This lead to a hotspot on one part of the water rail which affected the capillary tube and subsequently the water reading. Its just that daft. I spotted it by using an infrared thermometer. The water temperature was therefore unlinear because it was responding to bothe the real water temp and then the steam trapped in the water rail when the engine got hot enough.
The gauge was therefore unlinear compared to the electrical water temp via the ECU. Sorting out that headache to satisfy myself I had the right answer took a couple of weeks.
Even after removing the airlock I still wasn't happy, although it improved somewhat. The answer ended up being to reroute the capillary tube underneath the bodypanels of the car to insulate it from the engine temp. Followed by calibrating the dial by removing the face and moving the needle pointer to correspond with what the ECU is saying. Having taken the dial apart there is no other calibration system apart from the amount of ether in the tube. I assume therefore that calibration at cairbont is simply the same. I did look at an electric water temp, but no company I could find made an electrical dual gauge.
Finally however, I'm at the point where my water gauge over the past month or so has faithfully followed what the ECU is recording so I'm now happy.
julian64 said:
Anyone ever taken the front off a water temperature gauge on a cerb.
Am struggling a bit as I don't want to break anything.
Having (fingers crossed) got my temperature problems finally under control the needle promptly falls off the front of the water gauge and is now sitting laughing at me at the bottom of the gauge.
Don't really want to be flying round brands wondering what temperature the car is at
Nothing on the back seems to release it and although it rotates there doesn't seem to be any way of prising it off without breaking it.
Am on holiday from tuesday to friday so no want to sort it out before tuesday.
Can you get access by taking the dash pod off?Am struggling a bit as I don't want to break anything.
Having (fingers crossed) got my temperature problems finally under control the needle promptly falls off the front of the water gauge and is now sitting laughing at me at the bottom of the gauge.
Don't really want to be flying round brands wondering what temperature the car is at
Nothing on the back seems to release it and although it rotates there doesn't seem to be any way of prising it off without breaking it.
Am on holiday from tuesday to friday so no want to sort it out before tuesday.
MB
Taking the dash off just lets you undo the gauge holder and the gauge slips through the front of the dash into your lap, the spare capillary tube is that long.
The bezel of the cairbont is cheap as chips metal, that has been swaged with a special machine to fit over a small lip on the dial.
Removal is slowly leavering up the back of the dial until it can be prised off.
Not enough and it won't come off, too much prising and it falls off giving you problems about how you put it back on again, and potentially distorts the ring.
After a lot of gentle prising, mine came off with a satisfying ping, and went back on the same way.
Would have been so much easier with a proper screw thread, but me thinks TVR were allergic to screw threads (see airbox thread)
The only trick to this, above an extreeme amount of patience was that the gauge holder that fits the gauge into the dash can also be used to prise the bezel off in a very controlled maner as you do up the screws.
The bezel of the cairbont is cheap as chips metal, that has been swaged with a special machine to fit over a small lip on the dial.
Removal is slowly leavering up the back of the dial until it can be prised off.
Not enough and it won't come off, too much prising and it falls off giving you problems about how you put it back on again, and potentially distorts the ring.
After a lot of gentle prising, mine came off with a satisfying ping, and went back on the same way.
Would have been so much easier with a proper screw thread, but me thinks TVR were allergic to screw threads (see airbox thread)
The only trick to this, above an extreeme amount of patience was that the gauge holder that fits the gauge into the dash can also be used to prise the bezel off in a very controlled maner as you do up the screws.
julian64 said:
I did look at an electric water temp, but no company I could find made an electrical dual gauge.
Finally however, I'm at the point where my water gauge over the past month or so has faithfully followed what the ECU is recording so I'm now happy.
SPA design do one, which is what I replaced my old gauge with, it is digital however so not an exact match......Finally however, I'm at the point where my water gauge over the past month or so has faithfully followed what the ECU is recording so I'm now happy.
I did manage to refit the original bexel to it tho and with a white face it looked OK.
I even fitted a 2nd sensor via a switch to flip between oil and water temp.
Good effort on getting yours to work tho' if only TVR had done this in the first place eh?
Matt
350Matt said:
julian64 said:
I did look at an electric water temp, but no company I could find made an electrical dual gauge.
Finally however, I'm at the point where my water gauge over the past month or so has faithfully followed what the ECU is recording so I'm now happy.
SPA design do one, which is what I replaced my old gauge with, it is digital however so not an exact match......Finally however, I'm at the point where my water gauge over the past month or so has faithfully followed what the ECU is recording so I'm now happy.
I did manage to refit the original bexel to it tho and with a white face it looked OK.
I even fitted a 2nd sensor via a switch to flip between oil and water temp.
Good effort on getting yours to work tho' if only TVR had done this in the first place eh?
Matt
I'd be all or nothing. Either the original jules verne look, or replace the current dash with a computer rouch screen, and animated dials, like an airplane.
I am a bit bonkers
julian64 said:
350Matt said:
julian64 said:
I did look at an electric water temp, but no company I could find made an electrical dual gauge.
Finally however, I'm at the point where my water gauge over the past month or so has faithfully followed what the ECU is recording so I'm now happy.
SPA design do one, which is what I replaced my old gauge with, it is digital however so not an exact match......Finally however, I'm at the point where my water gauge over the past month or so has faithfully followed what the ECU is recording so I'm now happy.
I did manage to refit the original bexel to it tho and with a white face it looked OK.
I even fitted a 2nd sensor via a switch to flip between oil and water temp.
Good effort on getting yours to work tho' if only TVR had done this in the first place eh?
Matt
I'd be all or nothing. Either the original jules verne look, or replace the current dash with a computer rouch screen, and animated dials, like an airplane.
I am a bit bonkers
julian64 said:
The reason my water gauge initially suddenly gained 10 degrees was because I had an airlock on the water rail the capillary tube was fixed to. This lead to a hotspot on one part of the water rail which affected the capillary tube and subsequently the water reading. Its just that daft.
Can this happen on a speed six as well? If so how do you cure it?julian64 said:
..................The reason my water gauge initially suddenly gained 10 degrees was because I had an airlock on the water rail the capillary tube was fixed to. This lead to a hotspot on one part of the water rail which affected the capillary tube and subsequently the water reading. Its just that daft..........
I kind of understand your logic in that you want the guage to be accurate, however it seems to me the gauge was doing it's job here, it alerted you to a problem. By re-routing the capilliary tube and making the reading Linear, the guage may be more accurate, but you would be unaware of any poterntial problems like air locks. Gassing Station | Cerbera | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff