Temperature sender bulb into block

[Bryce Mcclintock]

Hi from New Zealand guys , I recently acquired a 52 plymouth cranbrook thats been a restoration project over the last two owners .The motor was reconditioned and mostly connected up .Im trying to put the temperature sender bulb into the block which i assume is in the head at the back on left hand side i cannot get the bulb in its too fat .so i tryed a spare one i had from previous owners parts car i can get this in until i hit the flange at the base of bulb . Is there ment to be something that screws into head first then the bulb into that ? Thanks 

Edited December 14, 2020 by Bryce Mcclintock
Spelling mistake

[sidevalvepete]

Yes. There probably is a 'spacer' or 'adapter' that fits between the bulb and the head. See a couple of pics of my 1938 201ci engine. One before the temp bulb fitted and one after. Will be a pretty common fitting.

[Bryce Mcclintock]

Thanks alot that clears it up bit . There was an extra pice in box that threaded on the the bulb but its too wide to fit in  the block ? 

[sidevalvepete]

Is the reconned motor the original? Is the temp unit you are working with the matching one for the car and/or the engine? Regardless there is probably an adapter fitting that will marry the two together

Edited December 14, 2020 by sidevalvepete

[Eneto-55]

Your engine may have a later head on it.  I have the same problem, because I have a 55 model engine in my 46, and the P15s had a capillary temp gauge, and the 55 had an electric one.  (The hole there on the late model block is much too small to take the fitting for the capillary bulb.)  I do not know when they switched to electric for the temp gauge.

[greg g]

I ran into the same issue with my 46 gauge into my 56 head. I had to go to the plumbing supply shop to make up an adapter.  The 56 head had the electric sender. It doesn't look good but works. The other option would be to drill and tap the head to accept the larger gland nut. But that would besrt be tackled with the head off.  I discovered this last year when I replaced n after market gauge and sender for a stock 46.

 

 

[Bryce Mcclintock]

Thanks you maybe right i think it maybe a latter head or engine ,ill try making something up i dont want to risk tapping head this is rear car and engine in New Zealand very hard to find parts 

[sidevalvepete]

Bryce, sent you a pm

Edited December 15, 2020 by sidevalvepete

[Eneto-55]

8 hours ago, greg g said:

I ran into the same issue with my 46 gauge into my 56 head. I had to go to the plumbing supply shop to make up an adapter.  The 56 head had the electric sender. It doesn't look good but works. The other option would be to drill and tap the head to accept the larger gland nut. But that would besrt be tackled with the head off.  I discovered this last year when I replaced n after market gauge and sender for a stock 46.

 

 

I had put a whole lot of work into my engine and the head, too, for that matter - had it all together again when I realized that the temp sender hole was too small.  At the time I figured maybe I could fix it into the freeze plug hole on top of the head right there.  But I'll probably pull the head back off and get it reamed out & tapped.  (Either that or convert to electric temp gauge.)  I do have another head, but I had vatted, bead-blasted, and cad plated this one - hate to loose all of that work.

[dpollo]

quick fix that doesn't look too bad is to put a Tee in the heater outlet on the right rear corner of the head  .  that is 3/8 pipe, so you need a 1/2 inch tee, a 3/8 nipple and bushing and another for the heater hose.  The temp gauge  fitting will screw into the tee.  Enough water will circulate to operate the gauge even when the heater is off.

[Bryce Mcclintock]

9 hours ago, sidevalvepete said:

Bruce, sent you a pm

Thanks i can do something like that altho this car hasnt got the heater fitted as a option but can do the same thing but just straight pipe 

[Andydodge]

What was the reason for cad plating the head?.............have never heard of that being done before...........andyd

[Eneto-55]

4 hours ago, Andydodge said:

What was the reason for cad plating the head?.............have never heard of that being done before...........andyd

Maybe because I'm OSD....   I was working in a plating shop at the time, and they let me do my own stuff after hours, at no charge.  Also did the intake & exhaust manifolds, and a lot of other parts.  Stripped and replated most of the bolts, lug bolts, etc.  Same for the backing plates, because both bead blasting and acid soaks (to remove rust) would remove the cad plating that was originally on certain parts.  There are some smaller parts that were originally only plated, no paint, that I wish I had done instead of some of the things I did do.  (Like the hood latch.  That is originally only cad plated, and I missed taking it in.)

[Andydodge]

Eneto.........well that works for me..........hey, if I was working in a plating shop I'd have the whole car in the tanks at some stage.......lol........andyd

[Eneto-55]

1 hour ago, Andydodge said:

Eneto.........well that works for me..........hey, if I was working in a plating shop I'd have the whole car in the tanks at some stage.......lol........andyd

Well, I DID really consider dismantling the transmission, and doing the case, but I'd already taken one transmission apart that I never got back together.  (I always say, "I'll try anything once.")  

I can't remember how much of it I actually ran through their tanks, because I eventually bought chemicals from them, and set up a paint stripper vat behind my dad's garage (in a stock tank), and also had a vat of Phosphoric acid. Anyways I ran my doors through the paint stripper, because it had been painted over once with a brush, and then later spray painted on top of that.  It was a lot of paint to sand off, which I did have to do on the body itself, of course.

I did also cad plate the bell housing, and the dust/mud shields that fit around the engine.  I may have also plated the inner fender wells.  Painted over if I did; did it just as rust prevention.  Cadmium plus anodizing.  That's how I did the backing plates, too. (Then painted black over that.)  I was building this car as a daily driver, not as something that was going to stay out of the snow & dirt.

Edited December 15, 2020 by Eneto-55

[JerseyHarold]

During my short-lived career as a spring design engineer we had to bake our cad-plated springs to get rid of hydrogen embrittlement.  Is that true for stamped sheet metal parts as well?

[Eneto-55]

Good question.  I wasn't in on the technical side there, and we never baked anything we had cad plated.  The only thing we baked was the aircraft cranks that had been milled, then chrome plated back to specs.  (They were hot tin plated in the non-machined areas as well, but I think that was just to prevent surface rust during storage.)  We did other types of stuff, but by far the two main markets we plated for were oil field and aviation.