M42club.com - Home of the BMW E30/E36 318i/iS
DISCUSSION => Electrical => Topic started by: keflaman on May 13, 2009, 02:14:55 AM
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For those of you with temp gauges that never rise above or barely out of the blue zone, I believe I may have an explanation and solution for the problem. Surfing Ebay one day for an instrument cluster, I noticed the temp gauge needles at rest (i.e. no power) were sitting at a higher angle than mine. As you can see in the first picture, my needle was resting on the “post” and the second picture shows the needle at “operating temperature” (~ 193-210F) as verified by my scanner.
http://www.m42club.com/forums/picture.php?albumid=38&pictureid=261
http://www.m42club.com/forums/picture.php?albumid=38&pictureid=258
I removed my cluster and carefully pulled the needle of my temp gauge and repositioned it approximate to the red arrow as shown in the picture below. When up to operating temperatures the needle now hovers in the approximate range of the two blue arrows.
http://www.m42club.com/forums/picture.php?albumid=38&pictureid=257