Finally got my truck back on the road today, popped the updated BlackBear PCM in, installed the new relays into my fan harness, put Rosie's Simpson race seat on the passenger side, and went out for a ride to put some miles on my new FLT Level7 and Circle-D billet multi-disc. Everything was great, hooked up a scan tool to see how everything was doing, LTFT's were close to zero, everything was working as it should, Rosie was having a good time, when suddenly the temp gauge dropped from 185ish to 160 and stayed there. I pulled over and took a quick look at the temp sensor in the head, it was plugged in and the wires look good, so my gut says that the stepper motor took a crap. What sucks is that this is a Denali cluster, and it doesn't even have a ton of miles on it...

anyway, enough BS-ing...when I get a chance I'll test the wiring (I'm sure that there's a test that I can do where I ground one of the wires or jump them out of something...unfortunately I'm packing since I'm moving and I already packed my service manuals), and the sensor probably has a resistance test that I can do...but, if it is a stepper motor, where's the best place to get one?

Thanks for reading my novel and any input

 

Cool Billy! Glad your enjoying your new gear/mods!

Hmmm, im thinking stepper motor also.

Do you have the stock cluster to try?

How bout a pic of that Denali cluster?


I'd like to see one in our style trucks.

 

Could it be that was when the t-stat opened up?

 

Since you mention LTFT, don't know if you have HPT or the like, scan the coolant temps and see if they match the gauge. If they don't chances are its in the cluster.

 

Ha, the ****** was working today on my ride to work lol.

No stock cluster anymore, but now it's working lol. I'm sure that it will take a dump again.

I don't think so, because I was driving with a scan tool hooked up and the coolant temps were reading 185* when the needle just dropped...it didn't go down slowly, just sorta went dead and dropped.

No HPT or EFILive, but EFILive is on the wish list for the future, for now I'll just let Justin at BlackBear take care of the tuning. I do have two separate scan tools...and old simple AutoXray, that will only show one parameter at a time, but has a fast refresh rate, and will show knock retard. I recently bought an Equus Innova, that does CAN OBDII and ABS on domestics I believe. The first time I used it was when my check engine lt came on after I installed my new PCM (had a bunch of rich codes and it was running rich...figured out that the wrong injector settings were in there).

But yea, the gauge didn't match the scan tool...gauge was pegged at 160* when scan tool was reading up to 192*. Is the sensor for the gauge also the sensor for the PCM? If so, then it's already diagnosed...the gauge is poo poo.

 

Here's some pics of that Denali cluster for you Tim, there are more on my CarDomain page, linky is in my sig I love this cluster BTW, nice upgrade over the stocker

 

yes. actually, the PCM receives the data from the sending unit, then the PCM sends the data to the Gauge, therefore they should all be the same. you have a bad gauge.

 

Thanks Billy, im going to have to find one of those clusters, i want a factory trans temp gauge.

 

Cool deal, that's good to know...I've heard that you can just replace the stepper motors, and there's somewhere that folks get them on the cheap...ebay maybe?

Any time Tim, you know I'm always glad to share pictures I got mine from JPCustoms, but I know that you can find them cheaper. The 99's are wierd and something happens where you get an airbag light or something like that when you install one of the different clusters with the temp gauge/120mph speedo, and the one from JPCustoms is already modified to fix that, so I took the easy, but more expensive route.

 

The freakin thing has been working fine for two days now, spooky