83 244 Issue with Temp Gauge
 

First time poster on the forum. I scooped up a fixer up 244 a few months ago and am currently working the kinks out of if. My current issue is with the cooling system. When it warms up, the needle on the temp gauge seems to hover right at 3/4 of the way up. I swapped out the thermostat and sending unit and the gauge rose even higher right on the border line to red. I used an infrared thermometer to check the operating temps on the block and head and my hightest readings weren't anything more than 195F. In any case, I read online that these cars had issues with that temperature compensation readout thingamabobber whichamacallit. I pulled out the cluster and found a bad resister.

• I was wondering if it had anything to do with my temp gauge woes?
• Does anyone know where i can source that resister or a used gauge or a used cluster?

My gauge is the one with the tach on the left, speedometer in the middle and fuel and temp gauge on the far right.

Thanks in advance

to source the resistor you'd need to know its color code, 3 or 4 bands.

I googled a bunch of not-very-good pictures of that version of the instrument panel, and it /could/ be something like brown black white gold, which would be 10,000,000,000 ohms, which is insane so I must have seen wrong. maybe its white-black-brown-gold (these pics are awful), which would be 910 ohms.

Thanks for the help. I actually found a pic on ebay that might work. Nope, I still can't make it out. I might pass by the dealership and see if they have one sitting around.

hahhaahahah, a volvo dealer having a instrument panel from a 35 year old car lying around? dream on.

anyways, I think tats the pic I found earlier, and yeah, its either white-black-black or white-brown-black, which is 90 or 91 ohms.

the real question is, why did the magic smoke get out? that generally means way too much current was run through it. even if you put 12V directly across a 90 ohm resistor, thats only 130mA (0.13 amps)... ahhh, but that's 1.6 watts, and a resistor that size is probably only 1/4 watt, so yeah, that could make it smoke...

btw, my goto source for electronics parts like this is www.digikey.com, but you do need to know exactly what you're ordering, and on a single tiny part like that, shipping will likely cost more than the part.


ok, 90 ohm isn't a 'standard' value, 91 ohm is. here's a in stock 5% (gold tolerance band) 91 ohm 1/4 watt resistor, $0.10
https://www.digikey.com/product-deta...0CT-ND/1830326

like I said, S&H on that will likely be a few bucks. digikey is pretty good tho... and fast.

note, if you buy that instrument panel with the clock, you can swap your tach onto it, they are interchangable.

yeah. i wasn't banking on it either. figured they could order it and i'd get there and take a pic and WHAM BHAM THANK U MA'AM.

to answer your other question about why it smoked out, the car does seem to have quite a few unsecured wiring in the engine area and some that are rubbing. a few weeks ago, i noticed the the ground point at the side of the alternator broke off. i think it had been that way for a while because it was covered up in all kinds of greasy crud. i went ahead and replaced the end connector and hooked it back up. at some point, i'm gonna have to loom and secure everything.

thanks for the heads up. everything including shipping still came up to under $4. if i get it this week, i should have it soldered on sunday. hopefully it'll last at least long enough to source out a good cluster unit if not longer.

which brings my to my next issue of a miss in the engine at idle. if the fuel gauge is reading correctly, it sat for 2 years with 3/4 tank of fuel. i'm thinking it's related to bad fuel. anyway, while i was changing out the coolant sending sensor, i noticed a loose single hookup connector. i was thinking it might be for the fuel injection temperature sensor that i heard so much about on that same side of the block. i stuck my arm in there but couldn't seem to locate it on the side of the block. do you have any idea where that sensor would be in relation to the coolant sensors?

there's no check engine light but im wondering if the system has some kind of pre OBD set up.

ok i didn't even think of that

no OBD at all on LH 2, 2.2 cars, OBD-1 was introduced on LH2.4 in 1989, error codes from ECU and ICU are read with a LED and pushbutton under the hood.

my apologies that it's taken me so long to respond. life kinda got in the way. i was able to source out the resister from the site you sent me the link to. thanks. on the back of the tachometer on the top, there are those three prongs that stick out. if i remember correctly, there was only one that i hooked up the connected to but i can't for the life of me figure out which one it connected to.

i'm still having the temp gauge issue. one thing i've noticed is that the fuel gauge sometimes shows 3/4 and sometimes shows 1/2. also if i bang on the dash when it's warm. i can notice the temp gauge jump up. so far, i've swapped out sending unit, engine temp sensor, resister on the cluster itself( hard to say it's the right resister anyway). my infrared pointer is showing normal temps at hoses, water pump, thermostat, etc. i'm not experiencing drivability issues and I'm on the fence on whether to get a manual temp reader, new cluster all-together, cylinder leak down test, or anyone else have any ideas?

If the temp change on the temp gauge when you bang on the dash, that would tell me your problem is in the cluster and not in the engine compartment. Try to source a different cluster. Make sure you get one with the same number. You can swap in your speedometer to retain the correct mileage for your car.