I recently picked up a ‘56 vette to add to the collection. I prefer to have nice solid drivers that I can enjoy and show well at Cars and Coffee to the non-NCRS eye. Living in Florida, I like to enjoy them and tinker with them.

At the top of my “to do list” for this one is to fix the temperature gauge. You will notice from the picture that there is an after market gauge mounted under the dash. I’m not sure what is not working about the current gauge. I would believe it to be one of two things. Of coarse the gauge in the car could just be bad. Alternatively, if could be the sending unit. The engine in the car is from a 1969 327 Corvette. I suppose the sending unit on that engine may not be compatible with the 1956 gauge. Hopefully an expert can chime in and let me know if that sending unit is compatible with the gauge. If not, I will start there and get a 1956 sending unit and visit the hardware store to get the fittings to work (1/2 vs 3/8 NPT I believe). If the sending unit is compatible, I suppose it must be the gauge. I haven’t found replacement gauges available from the usual sources, but I do see rebuild services.

I know it is not a big deal, but I’d like to at lease make it look right. Ya, I’m going to replace the radio with one that looks original, but has Bluetooth.

Pictures of the gauge, sending unit, and car are below.

Thank you,

Dave

 

When I first got my 57, the temp gauge was not working. I took it out and found that one of the wire connectors had been over-torqued, causing it to ground out. I was able to repair it and test it with a 9 volt battery, and all was good!
As far as the sending units, there has been a lot of discussion on the forum about these. Wells seem to make the best from everyone’s experience.
Good luck, hope this can help!

John

 

Does your engine have two temp sending units? The one in your picture appears to be for the under dash gauge. I have never worked on a '57, but I am assuming that the '57 gauge is electrical??.
Does your old gauge move at all? Perhaps it is not connected to anything.
Not that it matters, but 69 Vettes had 350cu.in. engines