OK, so i did the bypass procedure. Now the needle rests at 8 o'clock and moves a little in each direction (i only drove 30 miles or so). Is this normal? The reason I asked about the thermostat is that it was replaced last summer with some off brand from advance auto. I'm not sure of the temperature rating. I'm going to check the gauge by grounding the sender wire to see if it pegs, but should I be checking anything else?

Mike

You could also pull out the thermostat, place it in a pan of water with a cooking thermometer, and see at what temperature it opens.

same thing happened when i bypassed my comp. board. needle would only get up to about 8:00. replaced thermostat with new 92C thermostat and now needle reads at about 9:10. the old thermostat seemed to be just a little bit sticky. my gas milage went up about 1.5 mpg and all seem to work well now. have done mostly city driving but much with a.c. on high and have experienced vitually no movement in temp. gague needle.

that's what i know...

- SPC - 1987 245DL 232k

I did the bypass about 6 months ago and that was exactly my experience - it runs around 8 to 8:30 (used to run at 9 with the temp board in) and does move a little depending on outside temp and driving conditions. The bypass has been great - every couple months before I did it I was cleaning those darn temp comp board pins and it would work OK for a couple months and then start acting up again - the needle moved around randomly. My theory is that the temp board may be more important in an artic climate where the thermostat is actually opening and closing alot to dampen those cycles out of the gauge reading.
Robb