Club 80-90 Forums

Forgive my inexperience .
I've had a complete engine rebuild (after some kind garage overfilled it) and since having it returned the temp guage needle hardly moves.
At best it might just reach the reading scale itself.
Driving home yesterday, after around 100 or so miles, it was getting hot going up hill and the engine seemed to struggle and lose power. Is tis some kind of safety measure? The needle was about a third of the way across. Assuming this was working correctly this would be over half way. Fortunately a bit of air running through the radiator and going downhill and along the flats it cooled down to just below the quater mark.
Does this need calibrating in some way at all so i can get nmy true needle reading back?

May need bleeding also worth checking if Radiator fan cuts in at appropriate time. My fan normally kicks in around the centre/middle mark. Hope this helps. If not plenty of knowledge on this site who maybe able to throw more light on it.

Cheers Tony

magictricky wrote:Forgive my inexperience .
I've had a complete engine rebuild (after some kind garage overfilled it) and since having it returned the temp guage needle hardly moves.
At best it might just reach the reading scale itself.

Who fitted the motor back in? They should have sorted that. It is very important on these vans to have a properly functioning temperature gauge!!

magictricky wrote:Driving home yesterday, after around 100 or so miles, it was getting hot going up hill and the engine seemed to struggle and lose power. Is it some kind of safety measure?

Certainly not a "safety measure" - these vans don't have that sort of technology.
"Struggling and loosing power" is sometimes a very bad sign, in that they can be symptoms of it seizing up. I hope not for your wallets sake.

Q = How do you know it was getting hot?

magictricky wrote:The needle was about a third of the way across. Assuming this was working correctly this would be over half way.

I don't understand that, sorry.

magictricky wrote:Does this need calibrating in some way at all so i can get my true needle reading back?

There is no calibrating. It is either an electrical fault, or someone "forgot" to fit a thermostat (or it's stuck open).
Easy enough to fix, but as I said above, the garage who fitted the engine should have done it.

Now, important = what engine are we talking about here !!
p.s. put it in your "sig"

1.9D
Believe it was out of a golf.
AEF if that means anything.
I'll ask the question in a few weeks when it goes in for MOT and get this working properly.