Quick gauge check.....

Quick gauge check.....

Author
Discussion

hughjayteens

Original Poster:

2,029 posts

273 months

Wednesday 30th January 2002
quotequote all
Being new to this TVR lark I just wanted to double check all is OK on my 97 400.

Temp is 70 +/-5 on a normal run (Fast A road, Motorways etc) and very quickly reaches 90 in traffic, at which point the fans come in.

Oil is usually arounnd 35psi.

Speedo is usually...............


Anyhow, just a quick thought about temperature in traffic.. Now my 400 has AC, which I am guessing will make the engine run hotter, so when I am stuck in traffic will it be bad for the engine, for me to sit there with the AC on full or is it designed to do this?



plotloss

67,280 posts

275 months

Wednesday 30th January 2002
quotequote all
All your guages sound about spot on mate.

Cant tell you about A/C as I dont have it.

Matt.

pbrettle

3,280 posts

288 months

Wednesday 30th January 2002
quotequote all
Same here - dont have AC but is exactly the same for me. The speed at which the temp rises in traffic it almost frightening. The fans should keep the temp steady rather than drop it right down again. So leave it running on your drive for 10 - 20 mins with the AC on to see the difference. You should the fans kick in and kick out keeping the temp steady....

Well that is supposed to happen. If you are worried get a fan override switch fitted - you can manually click in the fans at a lower temp preventing things getting too high.... This is what I do.

Cheers,

Paul

jtong

875 posts

289 months

Thursday 14th February 2002
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The temp you've got is similar to myself in the winter. Summer driving gives me running temps around 85C. I've not found that the A/C raises the temperature significantly as it doesn't present that much of a load to the engine. In fact, when my otter switch (?) died the water temp got to 120C and turning on the A/C helped to bring this back down. The A/C seems to force the cooling fans to come on periodically.

manek

2,975 posts

289 months

Thursday 14th February 2002
quotequote all
Hmm, if the otter switch dies, the fans will never come on because it needs to work to complete the circuit. That's why the engine overheats without the switch.

And having AC on presents an extra load to the engine which should make overheating worse, in my view. If events are as you describe, something else is happening -- maybe the otter switch wasn't duff after all?

yum

529 posts

278 months

Thursday 14th February 2002
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sounds ok.

Don't trust the oil pressure gauge to give an accurate reading (mine is at 60, but that's just the gauge, apparently). The most useful purpose is to show that it isn't zero, when the problems start.

Can recommend the override switch.

Finally the speedos generally over-read. Mine over-reads by 8mph at 40 (indicated) rising to 15mph at indicated speed 130. Testing done with a GPS (on the continent, of course).

All part of the fun

R



>> Edited by yum on Thursday 14th February 11:47

.mark

11,104 posts

281 months

Thursday 14th February 2002
quotequote all
My speedo must be out by 10% at 80mph as when I pass a mile marker by the time I have got to the next one my mileage has gone up by 1.1
Surely this has a knock on effect with the trip meter meaning we all servive our cars earlier? - Or not?