I've got my new 59AB flathead in my 37 Ford Tudor slant. I'm rewiring the whole car and going to 12 volt. Being new to flatheads, I was trying to hook-up the temp gauge in the original gauges. No surprise, it doesn't work. Looks like it would need to be repaired if I wanted to use it. I'm thinking of just going to a regular temp gauge below the dash. I'm no purest. Thinking if I want to monitor both sides of the motor, I would need 2 temp gauges. Is anyone doing that or is that from the redundancy department of redundancy? Pics of anyone using 2 temp gauges would be appreciated as would be advice on going with just one. Thanks.
I have collected two temp gauges for all the flatty-powered cars on my to-do list. I've seen it done many times before. I've seen it done many times before.
My dad's got 2 temp gauges in his 47. Monitoring both banks I feel is a good idea. 2 thermostats that can fail 2 water pumps that can fail Cheap insurance in my book. I can take a picture of it when I get home.
I have the left side sender hooked to the original gauge (still 6v), and the right side hooked to a second gauge mounted under the dash.
If your problem is hooking up the '37 tube/bulb gauge to a 59A head, no big deal. You need a simple adaptor carried by all the old Ford parts places that screws into the 3/8 pipe hole and provides a ledge for the bulb flange to tighten against. I think this is the very same adaptor available at NAPA or speed shops meant for installing common Stewart Warner/aftermarket mechanical temp gauges into 3/8 pipe too.
I too would advocate running dual gauges in case one water pump were to fail. One of my buddies did that on his F1 and he just used a dual-gauge chrome panel from the parts store installed below the dash. I think it looks kind of cool personally.
hmm sounds like a good idea on the old flatties. I like when they mount a gauge on each side of the block.
I run one gauge with a 2-position toggle switch. I don't see both temperatures at once but, I check as necessary and am able to keep gauge cluster simple.
When the gauges went to electric (39-40-41 I think) Ford orriginaly ran two senders, one on each side with a jumper wire between the two gauages...meaning it would read the hottest. If one bank were getting hot due to say, a bad thermostat, the gauge would start reading hotter. Not saying the dual gauge thing is bad, but just an idea.
After chasing an overheating promblem in my '49 panel and finding out it was actually something bad in my sensor system I installed two separate mechanical guages for $15 each.
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