What bulkhead connector is this, and temp gauge TS-ing

[Riley88]

Hey all, recently got my car back but while waiting for my title to come to me from california ive been starting the car every 3rd day. I recently installed the auto air bleed kit from Toby. I have seen the temp gauge work, and was venting the air to get all the air out of the system. It was a pretty cold night but i let the car idle and went for an around the block drive for about 15 minutes and the temp gauge did not budge at all. I figured the temp sensor could possibly either A: not be connected or have come loose , or B: its gone bad( i doubt and i believe i had it replaced in 2014 when i first became the new owner). Regardless While trying to get a good angle to look at the temp sensor without removing the air filter, i found a connector thats disconnected. Does anyone know what connector this is? I looked at pictures of the temp sensor and figure its probably a single spade connector but does anyone know what color the wire itself is? Thanks for reading my long post!

[AugustneverEnds]

Is your car an auto or manual? Some plugs are not used on the former and used on the latter and vice versa. If memory serves that plug is not used on autos (i'd go out to check but it's freezing out right now)


Your temp. gauge problem may be up at the instrument cluster. Do all of your other gauges and warning lights work?

[Ron]

The temp sensor wire should be Blue with a Green stripe.
You can test the gauge and circuit by connecting and disconnecting the wire. (The needle should move back and forth.)

Several schematics in the Resources section HERE (http://dmctalk.org/forumdisplay.php?5-Resources).

[Riley88]

Is your car an auto or manual? Some plugs are not used on the former and used on the latter and vice versa. If memory serves that plug is not used on autos (i'd go out to check but it's freezing out right now)


Your temp. gauge problem may be up at the instrument cluster. Do all of your other gauges and warning lights work? 5 speed, stage 1 and every other gauge works completely fine.

[jackb]

Off the top of my head, I don’t know what that plug is for, and I’m home from work today watching two toddlers, so no time to look in the schematics or look deep on my car, but I did run to the garage real quick while they were eating chips and snapped this picture.

The other side of the plug has 3 wires, and they appear to go into this wire bundle just aft of the clutch slave.

Hope that helps right now.

[Riley88]

Off the top of my head, I don’t know what that plug is for, and I’m home from work today watching two toddlers, so no time to look in the schematics or look deep on my car, but I did run to the garage real quick while they were eating chips and snapped this picture.

The other side of the plug has 3 wires, and they appear to go into this wire bundle just aft of the clutch slave.

Hope that helps right now.

Awesome I will go check them out at my car tonight and come up with a plan. It worked last time i took the car for a short drive around the block. This helps alot, thank you! Ill dig through ther schematics too. I dont think that plug was ever plugged in and i am sure it has absolutely nothing to do with my gauge issue but i saw it and was like hmm.....

[Riley88]

Off the top of my head, I don’t know what that plug is for, and I’m home from work today watching two toddlers, so no time to look in the schematics or look deep on my car, but I did run to the garage real quick while they were eating chips and snapped this picture.

The other side of the plug has 3 wires, and they appear to go into this wire bundle just aft of the clutch slave.

Hope that helps right now.

Your car is alsoa 5 speed, it may be a plug related for automatic transmissions maybe? hmm Notice in that pic yours is plugged into nothing so hey no worries.

[Jonathan]

Wasn't there a suggestion for gently whacking the side of the binnacle to fix a stuck temperature gauge needle? I searched quickly and didn't find anything. It might have been suggested for the volt gauge though, I don't really remember the details. I do recall it being on the left side of the cluster though. Another idea anyway as you try and figure it out.

[jackb]

Your car is alsoa 5 speed, it may be a plug related for automatic transmissions maybe? hmm Notice in that pic yours is plugged into nothing so hey no worries.

Both mine and Riley88’s are 5-speeds.
Mine is plugged into a plug, with 3 wires, and it leads towards the harness I circled. It is tough to see in thatvpicture itis plugged in, but it def is.

[Ron]

Red paired with a Black is usually for a capacitor.
The colors for the other 3 wires will tell you what it is for...

[jackb]

The wires on the other side of my red and black wired plug are black, black/green, black/green. I tried tracing where it goes, but it just disappears into the harness. Without taking things apart on mine, I can’t give any more info.

[Riley88]

The wires on the other side of my red and black wired plug are black, black/green, black/green. I tried tracing where it goes, but it just disappears into the harness. Without taking things apart on mine, I can’t give any more info.
No worries appriciate the help. Im onto bigger fish it seems. Drove out to where i keep my car and thought hey....its 9pm why not start a car project without the proper tools. As in swap in delorean performance industries lower control arm supports ive been sitting on since i was waiting to get my car back. Get the tire off, spend an hour with a ratchet on one bolt because i left my impact at home. and whoops the bolt i had holding the lca in fell out and id idnt notice so when i popped the other end out....the lca went down....and i dont have a spring compressor lol. I may be buying a new lca set soon we? ill find out tomorrow ~_~

[dmcnc]

Do we have a thread on loose connectors? I see questions on these all too often.

[Ron]

For when you get back to it...
showthread.php?17084-Wire-Colors-by-Circuit (http://dmctalk.org/showthread.php?17084-Wire-Colors-by-Circuit)

[Parzival]

For when you get back to it...
showthread.php?17084-Wire-Colors-by-Circuit (http://dmctalk.org/showthread.php?17084-Wire-Colors-by-Circuit)

I have that connector loose too, Not sure what it is yet.

[DMC5180]

Do we have a thread on loose connectors? I see questions on these all too often.

I’ll clarify that white floating connector with Black/Red wires.

In the Early 81’s, that was used inline between the idle micro-switch and the Vacuum Solenoid. It is on the wire diagram as shown here.

https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20190104/b8ec2b432a52ecdb553a952c87aa6a80.jpg

Later 81’s had an engine wire harness revision that delated the BU (Black/blue) wire with mating connector. (Btw the wire is mis-colored Blue /Red in the diagram) For some Unknown reason DMC integrated the RF Filter in the other engine bay harness but never removed it from the production design of that harness.

Hopes this clears things up a bit.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Bitsyncmaster]

I remember finding that capacitor on the back side of my bulkhead connectors when I put new pins in my connectors. But the capacitor was wired to the wrong side of the wire to vacuum solenoid. It was wired to the 12 volt side rather than the switched side. So the capacitor did nothing for curing the inductive spike in my case. That spike would fire the ignition and thus cause my RPM relay to re-prime if you hit the gas without the engine running. Some cars had that capacitor mounted near the idle switch on the mixture unit.