Chrysler 318 cooling

drfeno

Member
Joined
Jun 19, 2008
RO Number
30284
Messages
133
Hello,

I have a 1981 silverton 31c with twin 318's I recently refit the entire boat, and went to a single helm station in the salon. Since putting it back in the water, I get very high temp indications on both motors. I did replace the sending units with single station senders. I replaced the exhaust elbows last year, and had the heat exchangers cleaned out while it was being refit. both raw water pumps were rebuilt, with new bearings and impellers.I get good raw water flow. The indications I get are around 210 to 220F, but when I shoot the coolant inlet of the heat exchanger with an IR thermometer, it reads about 141, and the exit reads about 129. the manifolds are cool enough to touch with your hand. the coolant reservoir also reads about 140-142. Since it doesn't actually overheat (steam, blown hoses, etc), I have to assume my indications are way off. they do climb to those temps quite quickly. The only theory I have now is that I did not remove the wiring harness that actually went up to the flybridge. I just coiled it up and left it in the engine compartment, tied down. It looked too complicated to extricate from the rest of the wiring, and since everthing worked, I figured I'd leave it. Since the Dual station/single station difference on senders has to do with the additional resistance on the other gauge, is it possible that the fact that the additional wiring is still in place could have and adverse effect on the readings I'm getting at the helm?
 
It sounds to me the sender may still be dual-gauge type.

If the 2nd station harness is no longer connected to the no-longer-used 2nd station gauge or grounded out in any fashion, I do not believe it should have any effect on the single gauge reading even if it was still connected to the sender.

USA single gauge temp senders have approx. resistance of :
450 ohms at 100*F
99 ohms at 175*F
30 ohms at 250*F

Dual-station USA senders should have 1/2 that resistance at each temp level.

As long as an IR temp gun aimed right next to the temp gauge sender reads normal temps but the gauge reads quite high it would seem to be likely the sender may be exhibiting ~~1/2 the proper single gauge resistance. But you can check that resistance to confirm if it is still a dual guage sender.

http://correctcraftfan.com/Downloads/Chrysler225_Manual.pdf
 
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