I had to replace my 122's temp gauge recently. I was lucky to find a tested-good one at the IPD sale for a good deal. I tested it when I got home with it and in a boiling pan of water at boil, it would read just a little more than the 100-degree mark on the little calibration marks just inside the top lip.

So once I got it installed and took a longer trip with the car, I was rather alarmed at the temperatures it was reaching. It was going well into the red-zone, and almost pegging out. The engine seemed to be running just fine, with no noticable trouble.

So.... I'm wondering what "normal" should look like on these old gauges. Do they have a "creep" towards the upper-range as they get really old? What should be the normal operating range of the actual engine and cooling fluid?

I'm thinking about installing an auxillary modern gauge as well, as this thing is making me paranoid. Does anybody have a recomendation for an after-market gauge that's easy to install? Would the sender unit go down the radiator fill-cap perhaps, or where would you put it?

Thanks for answering my questions all. Gotta love this forum!

-V-