I am considering installing an oil temp gauge on my 89 Aerostar.

Should I be looking at temp to or from the cooler? or both? What are the high temp limits?

Any recommendations on a gauge to use?

Any and all help will be greatly appreciated.

Bill Grates

 

Most of the senders are mounted in the tranny pan, which should give you a pretty accurate temp reading.

Not sure what the temps should be.

 

Sender mounted in the pan, is that the supply or return side of the cooler? In other words is that the hot or cold fluid (relative). I'm not sure the fluid flow path in the transmission.

I saw a dual temperature gage meant for twin engine marine applications on the web the other day. Would be the ticket for setting up to measure both the hot and cold fluid temps. The gages topped out at 185F though. Anybody ever seen this setup with a higher temperature range?

If anybody has a good source for trany temp gages and sending units please pass them along.

Any and all help will be greatly appreciated.

Bill Grates

 

Try www.eguages.com I've bought from them, good prices and delivery. If you want to avoid modifying your pan, consider a Perm-A-Cool remote trans filter. It mounts in the pressure line between your tranny and your cooler and has a 1/8" NPT port for a temp sender. It does a much better filtration job than your in pan screen and increases cooling as well. They have an optional guage and sender or you can use a VDO or Autometer unit. Try Summit or Jeg's for the kit.

 

The fluid temp in the pan is the "cool" side if you will, the Perma-cool has the sender on the line (well, acually in the filter mount)that is coming out of the tranny, this is the max. temp of the fluid. I usually run around 180-185 degrees when cruisin', and top out at 220-225 degrees when off-road, hill climbing at slow speeds, but have a very large aux. cooler to help with cooling before it returns to the pan. This is with a slightly higher stall converter which does slip a bit more and generates more heat than stock at the lower rpms. The temp drops back quick enough when cresting the hill. On a hot day running the A/C on the highway at 70-75 mph, the temp may climb to 190-195 up very long steep grades. If you place it in the pan, the max temp should be around 170-175 degrees and no higher for fluid and tranny life. Just about any oil temp guage will work and should go to at least 250 degrees (it doesn't have to say "tranny" temp unless that's what you want), your 185 unit will most likely peg-out when under stress, also gauges tend to be most accurate when run in the "center" of their range.