41' SERIES 62 TEMP GAUGE OPERATION

[Bullitt1]

Question?
  Is the temp gauge going to work correctly if the car has been switched from positive ground to negative ground? Everything else seems to work fine, although I had to switch the wires on the back of the amp meter to get it to read correctly. Engine runs good, starter works good, lights work good, fuel gauge seems to read correctly. Am I missing something. If I ground the sender unit wire and turn the key on, the gauge pegs to cold. Hooked up to the sender and the gauge does not work/move. I tested the ohm's resistance of the sender unit both hot and cold and it seems to be in line with prior posts about proper temp sender units. I got a new sender from Coopers vintage, but they did say if was for 12 volt not 6 volt and that at best the gauge would read at about 1/2 of normal. Needless to say if the gauge is not working with a 6 volt sender, it is not going to work with a 12 volt sender. I even tried switching power and ground on the sender with if out of the engine and using hot and cold water. No luck with that test. I am thinking that I may have to switch the car back to positive ground, and if I do, will the gas gauge which is working correctly, now not function? Am I opening up Pandora's box?
Any help is appreciated
Thanks
Vernon

[homeonprunehill]

01-10-08
VERNON,What the heck do you hope to accomplish by switching the "Ground' To answer your question, Yes, It should work just fine.Hum So Ever ,By driving the car, you will be "running" the battery down. What you have done is just like installing the battery Back-wards. If you will clean all connection and make sure that the battery cables are large enough and not corroded. It should Start amnd run OK.
Good Luck,JIM

[Bullitt1]

Jim:
  I am not the one who switched it to negative ground, the car was that way when I got it. And not knowing any better, I just assumed that they came that way. After all, most if not all of my experience is with cars that are negative ground. I did get a shop manual and upon further review it does show the car as having been stock with positive ground. So I guess I should have done a little more research first before assuming that negative ground was correct or not. I have up-graded all of the battery cables and cleaned all of the connections and the engine cranks at least 2 times as fast as before. And this is before I found out about positive ground being the correct way to have it. So now I will switch it back to positive ground and switch the amp gauge wires back as well, and then see if everything else works as designed.
Thanks for the input.
Vernon

[Bullitt1]

Up date:
  After switching the car back to positive ground, and switching the wires on the back of the amp gauge back to stock position, I started the engine up, runs fine, but the amp gauge was bouncing from the middle of the gauge to pegging discharge. Along with that was a ticking noise from the voltage regulator keeping time with the bouncing amp gauge. So I immediately shut the engine off and did some research on this and found that when the car had been switched to negative ground the voltage regulator had been switched as well. And even though I had re-energized the regulator, it just would not work with this positive ground system. After performing a search on this site concerning the proper voltage regulator, I found a post that said use a NAPA  # VR57 regulator, so I ordered one up and I guess the number changes over to a VR56. So I installed it and energized it, and Bingo, it works.  So anyhow, the car is fixed (at least that part of it) and thanks for the help.
Vernon
P.S.
  And the whole reason for the post in the first place was about the temp gauge. And YES the temp gauge now works as designed!!!

[35-709]

Good deal Vernon!  Sniff ---- we just love happy endings!