Water temp sender wire

I have always seen the wire coming in from the Pass side and normally runs with others right under the window, unless the wire went to a temp sender if there was one in the swirl tank, but still start on the pass side

Thanks Adam. Will pull the door card off tomorrow. Do you know if it comes in up high or down low in the engine bay on the passenger side by chance?

Not sure why you're pulling the door card off. Most of the wiring going to the engine compartment goes through a "tunnel" which can be seen if you remove the safety belt mounting on the sill next to the passenger seat. The wiring loom can be seen exiting the tunnel on the passenger side right aft of the bulkhead on the engine bay side. From there it splits up into several different looms: rear lighting, ignition, etc.

thanks for the guidance will remove the safety belt mounting which will be significantly easier. I was only thinking Door card as Adam said it was right under the window on the passenger side.

I should have said under the rear window

You will be able to observe the wiring harness exit point if you remove the RR tire and splash shield.

your engine covers will also be coming off for this project

Larry

The sender used to be in the swirl tank, so the wire you are looking for will not be at the front of the engine at the top of the water pump, but further back, on the rear, passenger side of the engine….

Let us know what you find…

In my humble opinion, it is sometimes better to just run a new wire from the gauge back to the sending unit. Some Panteras also had a resistor in that wire which was used to correct high engine coolant temperature reading. The factory water temperature gauge is not matched to the Ford sending unit and this was an actual service repair that was issued by Ford. You can also use a volt omh meter, but you have to find the end of both wires. Not all Panteras have have the same wire colors that are on the diagram. It is just an Italian thing!

appreciate all the insights so far. I already pulled off the factory resistor on the gauge side and have removed the old SunPro and it’s associated wireing and sender from my car. The factory 260 and matching sender (in block) are installed now. I just need to find the wiring on the sender side.

I have 18 gauge wire as I was thinking I may need to just re-run new wire as suggested.

Last question what do i need to pick up to connect the wire onto the sender if i cant find the factory wire coming out engine side?

If you have to replace the wire, do yourself a favour and use the correct color (or colors). The wire should terminate in either a ring connector or a bullet connector, depending on the sending unit.

good guidance on color matching. here is the sender I put in which should be factory. Looks like it’s got threads at the end.

It is threaded, and the most secure connection would be a ring terminal, a couple of washers and a nut  

It appears you used a lot of sealant on the block mounting threads. The function of the sender requires a good ground Connection established through the engine block threads. Not a definite problem, but certainly could be.

Larry

Thanks Larry and I did read in other topics where it was suggested to only tape once to ensure a good ground. Believe it or not what you see was already on the threading from new. I did not add any sealant or tape! It was a tight fit and as I went it was pushing it out

I have the original wiring diagram out and I’m very carefully opening up wire casings in search for the red/black. Will report back.

well unfortunately no dice. according to the factory wiring diagram the red black wire for the water temperature should come out of the same casing as the oil pressure pink black wire. Unfortunately the red black wire is not in that factory casing (also contains wires to fuel guage sender), nor is it in any of the others that comes up from the passenger side of the car.

I have a lift in my garage and I got under the rear passenger wheel and could not see it coming out of the loom further down either.

Those of you with factory cars can you please comment on where the red/black water temp sender wire exits the loom that comes from the passanger side?

This is from 4403. As far as I know this is all original. Wire comes out of the loom but the starter solenoid. I move this from the swirl tank to the front of the engine on 5350. It's long enough to move around without any modifications to the wire loom. Hope this helps.

Ken

Guess I should read my response before sending!

As a side note to all this. If someone wants to retain the original Veglia water temperature and oil pressure gauge, but have them be accurate, there is a simple solution. There is a company in New Mexico that can replace the Veglia gauge internals with Steward Warner internals and provide the correct sending units. I think the name of the company was Mo Mar and a friend of mine did it to his Pantera.

I purchased the compensator from Jon at Pantera Electronics. Looking forward to seeing how this works once I can find the other end of the damn wire!

Thanks Ken! Just to make sure I’m seeing this correctly is this entire wire I highlighted in red the red wire with the black stripe that goes to the water temperature sender?

If so it looks like it’s coming out near the bottom of the engine bay where the loom appears as an individual wire outside of the two larger looms? I was not tracking what you were saying about the starter solenoid?

Thanks! Eric

@jffr posted:

As a side note to all this. If someone wants to retain the original Veglia water temperature and oil pressure gauge, but have them be accurate, there is a simple solution. There is a company in New Mexico that can replace the Veglia gauge internals with Steward Warner internals and provide the correct sending units. I think the name of the company was Mo Mar and a friend of mine did it to his Pantera.

Be warned: I tried to get them to do this for me. I waited 2 months for a quote from “Joey”, then he finally said he was too busy. Charged $21 to ship the gauge back to me. Ridiculous! Try North Hollywood Speedo or Palo Alto Speedo. They do this type of work too.

The factory resistor looks like a white fuse holder and was wired in series behind the gauges. About 11 ohm.

Here is best shot i have, half out of sight, tied into wires with small zippie.

The red/black from the sender plugs into one end, the yellow black continues to the guage.

Thanks Larry I had already removed the white factory resistor and plugged the red/black sender wire into the pantera electronics compensator on the guage.

What i cannot find is the other end of the sender wire! Any pictures/help of where it origionated within the engine bay is appreciated!

74gts - yes, that is the red/black wire for the temp sender..

You previously asked about the starter solenoid in Ken’s photograph.

It sits on the mounting plate on the firewall, along with the voltage regulator, the ballast resistor and the ignition coil

The temp gauge wire is in the bundle right there next to the solenoid  

Here is another pic.

This pic shows the red / black temp sender wire in the wire harness at the right side of the firewall as it ascends vertically from the right side rocker panel.  This is an early car, but it should be the same as later cars.  The harness sheathing was cut back to expose the wires.  

John

Super helpful and I now think I am seeing my problem.

John and Ken-

In your images of the wires coming up from the rocker panel, it appears that you have two larger wire sheaths coming up and then a third smaller one which appears to be the sensor wire on its own. Are you able to confirm that it is in fact on its own, or did you pull it out of one of the other two large bundles?

Reason I ask is I only have the two larger bundles (see picture below) coming out. I was thinking perhaps it got pulled back so I removed the seatbelt holder on the passanger side floor and confirmed only the two large bundles present running inside of the rocker panel.

The large wire bundle on the right that has the sheath cut back branches into to smaller sheathed bundles and one sheathed single wire for the temp sender.

John

John thank you. If i am tracking correctly, i want to carefully open this bundle where the red slit is for my car?

Yes, that's where it should be.  

John

In my 73 L (5357) I didn’t remember having to split out the sender wire from the harness, but I did cover the wire in this special bright red sleeving.

You can see where it connects to my swirl tank sender in the first picture, and the second picture shows the wire going down into the cable bundle area (that you and John ID’ed in your most recent pictures).

I have an independent capillary gauge (mechanical) in the location above the water pump, but have had the Veglia gauge sender there as well without trouble. I can’t recall, but it would have been easy for me to extend the wire.

In the first picture, you can also see my auxiliary sender ground scheme.  I ran braided wire to a solid chassis ground, and I clamped the other end of the ground strap to the sender body with a stainless steel hose clamp.

The second picture is looking up, along the bulkhead toward the fender.  The camera is near the starter solenoid and VR mounted on the bulkhead.

Hope this helps…

PS.  You are sure it’s not in that small single wire sleeving going off to the right from behind the big one with your red mark drawn on it?

Rocky