im sure some of you have replaced your coolant temp switch like i did last night and dont you think that is the dumbest place to put that i mean how the heck are you supposed to get to it!
and on top of that my temp gauge went form reading wrong to not reading at all with the new one!
haha im sure there is tons of other stuff we have to say "that is the dumbest place put that"

 

Actually I agree. Although the one in the back is only for the gauge so you might want to change it again. I had to change mine twice as the first one snapped in half. The only other dumb thing I can think of is the dealer installed cup holders you know the ones that hang off the side just waiting to get kicked off by your dumb passenger. I still have mine though.

 

Have to agree, I broke mine off doing the valve cover gasket. It's still busted off in there... afraid to touch it since it doesn't leak.

 

yeah im going to be playing with it today at lunch to see if i cant get it working or go get another one
hahaha yeah those cupholders werent thought out very well until the later models definitely another dumbest place to put that i agree

 

Well the fact that they didnt put cupholders in the original design was bad enough. But then to make people happy they made a really dumb cupholder.

 

Are there 2 diff switches for the gauge and the idiot light? Make sure you got the right one.

 

on my cherokee and i believe on all the obd systems which is from 92-96 i think or 91-96 one of the two has two sensors the one on the thermostat housing which sends info to the ecu but doesnt run the temp gauge. then there is one on the back of the block on the driver side which runs the temp gauge
its just a single wire and i think it runs off the ground it has on the block at least thats what i was told and assume since its only one wire to the temp gauge
but i think i just got a bad one so im going to take it off and take it back to get a new one

 

The one in the back only does the temp gauge, that's right. I ran with mine broken off for 8 months, through the hot summer in FL, without issues. Aux fan came on still, never overheated. I've since relocated the gauge sender to a T where the ECU sender is on the front of the block.

 

bad idea...

The hottest your coolant gets is right in the back corner where the gauge temp switch sits.


You want to take your reading from there.

 

yeah im keeping mine right were it is im just replacing the old one because it was reading 20 degrees off so i went and bought a new one but when i put it in it doesnt work so im gonna fiddle with it maybe i didnt tighten it enough or maybe i over tightened if not maybe its a bad one i got and ill take it back
any thoughts on that 96xj?

 

best think i can think of is there is not a good connection on the electical plug, or the sensor is bad.


you can use jumper cables (little electrical ones not battery ones) and to make sure mine worked i boiled a pot of water then stuck the temp switch in to get a reading (had someone else watch the gauge while i did it).



so if you have the time. boil a pot of water, set it on the concrete, make an extention for your temp switch (mine is only one wire so its easy, small alligator clip on one end to clip onto the pin, open wire on the other to insert where the pin goes.)

have someone watch the gauge as you dip the sensor into the water. take the reading on the dash and compare it to a reading on a real kitchen thermometer.

 

i will have to try that that was somthing i hadnt thought of ill make an extension for it and dip it in water and ill check the wiring by using my old one too and doing the same thing should tell me whether its the wire or the sensor

 

Make sure you got the one for the gauge and not the one for the light. Otherwise it won't work. When I had the one for the light still after the cluster swap it would stay at 0.

 

Well, I figure a low reading is better than no reading. The only way to get the old broken unit out is to remove the head, and I'm not doing that on this motor. Besides, if the front location is good enough for the fan/ecu, it's good enough for me! She's getting a transplant later this year when I do the 4wd conversion anyway.

 

ill have to check in to that all i know is that there are two at autozone and the gave me the more expensive one it was like a 4 dollar difference but its the on that goes there same size and everything just a black connector instead of white