Classic Alfa Forums

Which light is supposed stay lit until engine is warm? As I don't see any lit , I had the clocks out to grease the speedo cable inner because it keeps ticking , and noticed there was an empty bulb holder top right of the cluster! No picture of anything on the front so maybe it's supposed be empty? Speedo still bloody ticking dead on 30 mph !

used to be the same one as low brake fluid if I remember, but also if memory serves was on early cars only..but could be wrong on all counts!

On the earlier ti’s it’s the water temp light itself , bottom of speedo left hand warning light. Bottom pic.

Just found a later binnacle pic and it has a Water temp Light in the middle section, top pic.

We need Lou to answer

Let me sober up a bit first

Water temp light but not normal to have it on later cars unless you’ve replaced the sender with an early one

NEG wrote: ↑Sat Sep 12, 2020 6:45 pm Water temp light but not normal to have it on later cars unless you’ve replaced the sender with an early one

On my '83 the water temp' came on once when the fan didn't kick in. Shut car off straight away.

Sud 145 wrote: ↑Sat Sep 12, 2020 9:07 pm

NEG wrote: ↑Sat Sep 12, 2020 6:45 pm Water temp light but not normal to have it on later cars unless you’ve replaced the sender with an early one

On my '83 the water temp' came on once when the fan didn't kick in. Shut car off straight away.

On early cars running thicker mineral oils the warning light comes on until the cylinder head temperature hits 30 degrees C and then goes out. This was so that you didn't blow out oil seals when revving the engine from cold. Both my boxer engines (the '78 Ti and which I stripped for parts and the current 1980 engine) have this sender unit which I have wired into the dash. I quite like the sense of theatre that it conveys, although it can be a pain at car shows when kids ask you to rev a cold engine!

I have also read that the light will come on again if the temperature exceeds a certain threshold, but this may be confusing the early sender with the later ones, which with modern semi-synthetic oils no longer need the "thrash light" before giving it a bootfull.

Lauren

I'd quite like one even though I don't need it also ,as im very mechanically sympathetic! I bought a supposedly alfasud thermostat off fleabay ,but it had 88 stamped on it , now temp gauge reads just over half instead of just under, but the heaters really hot now, so that's welcome ,and I've got a switch wired in to put fan on all the time if stuck in the stupidly crazy amount of roadworks in stoke at the moment !!