View: https://youtu.be/6T8Bg3YnaCw
Took this vid today of my temp gauge. It's only 15 seconds long. In real time you can see the gauge almost bottom out then shoot back up to whatever temp that is. What you don't see is that it does this the whole time back and forth randomly. Normally my temp runs on the tick mark right beside the "A". In the vid when it goes up suddenly that's just a touch higher than normal running temp as shown on the lovely factory gauge. Over the last few months I've been trying to get some things worked out on my car. One of the things I hoped to fix was crazy gauge readings. I put a brand new braided steel ground strap from the back of the drivers head to the firewall. I went over all the other grounds in one big "ground wire" project. They are all good. The only thing that I did accomplish is the temp gauge no longer goes to the top when I turn the car off. It does still rise every single time I turn the headlights on. The headlights on are worth one whole tick mark higher...ridiculous I know. Most know from my other posts but just in case, every single piece of the cooling system is new over the last couple years. The car is not running hot. I always put my thermostats on the stove in water and check them before install even if they are new.
I'm not trying to figure out if my car is running at a certain temp. I'm totally fine with the cooling of the engine. But nobody wants to see gauges flopping around all the time. No matter how well prepared I have myself, seeing a gauge move drastically all of a sudden makes me cringe every time.
My thoughts:
-bad temp sender
-bad temp sender connector (Google these two numbers Standard S635 or Dorman 85845)
I really think it's in the instrument cluster because the oil gauge does similar theatrics at times just not as often. That gauge scared me to death a few years ago flopping around just like the temp gauge. I went to a friend's shop and screwed in a mechanical oil gauge and it was rock solid.
What do y'all think? If it is the instrument cluster what are my options. I can't just go buy Autometer gauges as much as I'd like to.