Add Water Temp Gauge?
 

About to add an Auto Meter GS-Series water temp gauge, curious where to place the sending unit? I can add one of the upper/lower radiator adapters, have seen t'stat housings with a port and there's an existing port in the hot coolant crossover at the engine front.

Any ideas or experience installing of these, where can I stick it? :)

TIA

I've also been wanting to install a coolant temperature gauge, only a mechanical one.
Still need a good place to install the sensor bulb.
I've considered making an inline piece with a threaded connector, and installing it into the heater hose that supplies the heater core.
I don't see any other place to put it.

On my 2005 E350 with 5.4 engine I found a port in the coolant crossover passage at the front of the intake. The Auto Meter sending unit threaded right in, working fine now.

https://cimg5.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.for...adf2f0f057.jpg

They make the adapters you need, here's an example.
MMWHS-32-BK - Mishimoto Water Temp Sensor Adapter - throtl - New Performance Parts at the Best Prices

thanks, alloro,
That looks pretty good .... looks like it's intended to fit inline into the upper radiator hose.

I had one of those, it worked fine but opted for the already-existing port. Mine was from Glow-Shift, decent quality but super cheap and suspect screw drive clamps included---I used a better grade for peace of mind.

I agree, if you have a threaded port in a coolant jacket you should definitely use it. But for those that don't, the in-line hose adapter is a great solution.

My 05 F150 does not have that threaded port. From my understanding the modular engines circulate coolant to the heater core full time, where the upper rad hose only circulates when the thermostat is open. So if that's true, would it be better to mount the sending unit in the heater hose to get a more accurate read?
Is there another port I can mount the sending unit into?

True that the Modular Motors circulate coolant all the time through the heater core and upper radiator hose only when t'stat opens. I don't know there's a better place to monitor coolant temperature--since I'm running an after market temperature gauge I prefer seeing it rise slowly rather than just pop up to temperature all at once. The instrument cluster gauge seems to do this same thing but there's no numbers associated with the pointer location which is one reason I added the other gauge.

Most are happy with using the radiator hose adapter shown earlier if there's no other port to access. BTW for a short while I used the Glow Shift adapter, cost about $20 through Amazon IIRC.

HTH