I have two vintage Sun water temp gauges that the sending units have went bad. All that seem to be out there are $150.00-$200.00 sending units, are these people crazy? Can it be true that with thousands of these gauges in service you can't find a decently priced sender? I was told recently that a "generic" sender could be used provided a 1/2 amp resistor was placed between the sender and gauge. Has anyone heard that one? I would like to think that with all the car builders out there, some ingenious lad has come up with a solution to this problem without getting a loan to buy a sender from some guy trying to put his kids through college at my expense.
You're no doubt talking about the 2 5/8" WT-260 or "blueline" temp gauge. The sender for that gauge (Sun's old #'s WTS-125/375/500) weren't used in later production Sun's which is the main reason I don't handle Bluelines. There's an Ebay seller that comes up with NOS senders on occasion, but you're right... they're crazy expensive. The senders I have listed are NOT for Bluelines, they are for the 1,000 and CP series gauges. I've been told (though I haven't checked them personally) that repro's are available at a decent price (one is listed below). Tell them Mike @ Vintage Rod Components referred you. Might not help, but it won't hurt! Roger Scott Corvette Instrument Service 9627 Begonia Street Palm Beach Gardens, FL 33410 561-627-9345
If you can figure out the ohms range, tmaybe there is something close. I have VDO, SW and Faria sender values here somewhere. Mark
the sun sending unit I have in front of me at room temperature is 3.8 megs..... that is 3,800,000 ohms!..... I have measured these out before and didn't remember the impedance being so high, so I'm not totally trusting this reading as the sender is intermittent in my car due to the ceramic insulator being cracked. if I can locate a good sender which my friend has and can supply I will find a sender that works and sell them for $10 a piece to screw over the azzhats that try to get rich over enthusiast enjoying their swap meet find groovy gauges.........
TechnoVersions offers a sender for the Sun temperature gauges. Look at the bottom of the MeterMatch page. www.TechnoVersions.com It's $86 including priority mail shipping.