so for 3 years my temp gauge hasen't moved a bit - but for the past 2 days I've heard a clicking sound.... which i finally figured out was my temp gauge springing around wildly haha - when I gas it it drops to the bottom and flops around there; when i coast it flops around allllll over... and sometimes when i brake it flys up to the top and says im overheating...

craziest thing ive seen -

can anyone shed some light on this ? I would love for it to actually work properly without having to get a big aftermarket one from the parts house....

also i will add that it has a new coolant temp sensor - the one that goes in the front under the intake... not the oil temp sensor in the side above the headers

 

While I am not exactly sure what year the vehicle is that you are driving, I am positive that it does not have an oil temperature sensor. It is possible that it could have two coolant temperature sensors though. One near the thermostat and another one of the cylinder heads. So you may have changed the wrong one.

I have also seen wiring issues cause gauge problems like what you show in the video. The tie in to throttle changes could be due to engine movement.

 

sorry, its a 92 with a 4.3 --- i know on the front of the engine theres a coolant temp switch for the ecu and one on the driver side block for gauges --- but i just answered myself on what to try. the one on the block.

I can be slow sometimes...

 

however can a thermostat cause this problem ?

 

A thermostat wouldn't be the cause because it could not effect the instant on & off things you're talking about. A thermostat is gradual & has no instant affect on the gauges.
What you have is an electrical issue I believe.

 

Definitely electrical.

 

After thinking for another minute it's not a good scenario. It sounds like a wire that's broken inside the insulation or (better scenario) a connection issue.
I hate tracing wires that are intermittent in their conductivity because they're just that - intermittent!

 

Good thing about a truck that old, it's pretty easy to find either end of that wire and just replace the whole thing. If you really want to do it correctly, you can buy the terminals & replace it into & through the bulkhead connector and on up through whatever other connectors it goes through before it gets to the instrument cluster. I'm betting that the problem is under the hood though somewhere between the gauge and the bulkhead connector on the firewall and likely will be somewhat obvious. They can get burnt on the exhaust manifold and ground out.

 

could the sensor itself be intermittent? as in not work for 3 years then spring the gauge around like crazy for 2 days out of nowhere....

 

Check the wiring with an ohm meter & move the wires around while watching the meter. If they pass the test perhaps a sensor is in order. Just my thoughts.