ill be honest i havent poked around much yet, but curious what you guys thought might be the best place to put another coolant temp sensor (im adding a VDO coolant gauge which needs its own sensor).

any easy to remove parts up stream of the tstat that anyone can think of?

 

theres a big hex plug down and to the right of the thermostat housing, pull that and find an adapter bung that matches the thread size/pitch of the plug and your sender and bob's your uncle..

 

perfect, ill scope that out!
ive got a variety of NPT taps too, so if the plugs thick enough i might just hog a hole in it and slam the sensor in there

 

Pics!!!!

 

It already has two coolant temp sensors. One fat two-wire sensor that the ECU uses and displays through the OBDII port, and another skinny one-wire sensor that is only used on the utterly worthless stock gauge in the main cluster. You could try to use that sensor with your own gauge, or put a different sensor in its place. The stock sensors are right next to each other in the ideal location. Personally, I just use an OBDII UltraGauge which displays the precise temp from the two-wire sensor, and much more of course. Plus you can set an audible alarm if it goes too high.

 

not really interested in having the scan gauge always hooked up, and the VDO will be as accurate as the ECU's own sensor anyway.

ill take a look and see what thread pitch that stock gauge sensor is and maybe look into replacing it with the VDO sensor...
ideally id like to leave the stock stuff untouched and just add the new VDO prove nearby.

wont have time to actually take the truck apart for another week and a half, but it needs a new tstat so i figured id add this gauge while i had the coolant drained anyway!
ill keep you guys posted... thanks for the ideas!

 

It looks pretty substantial so there shouldnt be any problem drilling a hole in the center and tapping it.. Let me know how it goes, probably do the same thing. I've got a few VDO temp senders & gauges from vw's i've parted over the years.

 

will do, ill update this once ive had a chance to actually do this... in about two weeks.

 

This one, lower right. Square top is the ECU temp sensor, smaller to the left is the gauge sensor, and that big honkin' hole is where that stat should be (and on D2 as well IMHO, somebody ought to fab adapters).

 

If you didn't want to mess with the original equipment, couldn't you add something in-line along one of the heater hoses, like at one end or the other, maybe put in a short section just in front of the firewall where the heater hoses connect? As I understand it, that is always circulating isn't it? Put in a little sleeve with a tapped hole in it.