Hi,
Just recently i have noticed that my temperature guage periodically falls all the way down as if the car is not on and back up to just below the half way mark. After reading some posts i thought i would check to see if the temperature compensator board was the problem. I took out my instrument panel from the car and brought it inside. After i unscrewed the back of the instrument panel to remove it from the plastic case, i couldn't for the life of me find the temperature compensator board. However, i did notice that under the actual temperature and gas gauge i found two plastic clips that seems to be there to hold a circuit board which wasn't present. Is this where the compensator board should be? Should i have a compensator board? Or could my problem be the coolant temperature sending unit

Brian -

Your 86 is subject to crumbling insulation of the wires that go through the gray connector on the firewall. The wire from the temp sender to the temp gauge is one of those.

It is yellow. Have a look at the connector, and then see if you can spot it where it connects to the sender. It is below the intake manifold, and I think it is below the #2 runner.

My temp board is soo wacky I ignore it.

Good Luck,

Bob

:>)

Haha... looks like someone already got in there and did away with the board.

The sender could be the problem. They can fail here and there. Get a new one and see if it solves the problem.

Or get a new board for the cluster and put it in.
--
Chris Herbst, near Chicago, IL. 93 940, 91 240, 90 240, 88 740, 87 240

My temp gauge was doing the exact same thing, and all I had to do was clean the pins on the back of the instrument cluster. I read that on someone else's message a few weeks back, so I hope that helps too. I have no idea what the temperature compensator board is anyway!