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By redline - 15 Years Ago
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Hello all...I have a 6 volt '55 ford V8 Y-Block that came without the stock dual temperature sending unit setup. An aftermarket sending unit is in it's place on the driver's side head and the guage hangs under the dash. I want to make the original temperature guage in the dash functional again. This past winter, I bought the two sending units the specs call for; a single-pole and double-pole. I read that the single-pole unit goes in the passenger side head and the double-polled unit goes in the drivers side head. I also bought the wire that connects the two. I expect the wire that is dangling from the wiring harness is the lead that goes to the guage in the dash... ...but...I get the car out of storage and go to install these parts and find a freeze plug in the passenger side head where the single-pole temp sending unit is supposed to go. Now I am confused. Anybody out there know what might be going on?
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By Hoosier Hurricane - 15 Years Ago
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The dual senders are for a flathead. The '55 Y would only have a sender on the driver's side at the back of the head.
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By Bob's 55 - 15 Years Ago
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The 1955 Ford V-8 does indeed have two temperature units, one in each head. Maybe the heads where replaced at sometime? According to the book on is a temperature sending unit and the other is a "thermal switch". The reason for this is "the possibility of one bank operating hotter than normal due to restricted flow".
You will need to get a bushing with the proper threads for your sending unit (unfortunately I can't remember the size, there are two bushings available). Knock out the plug in the passenger head a install your new bushing (press fit).
Many vendors carry these bushings, Tee-Birds, Larry's, Carpenter, Mac's, etc;
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By Bob's 55 - 15 Years Ago
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Sorry guy's, this will be my last post. The site dropped me three times, I have rewritten this three times and it took me ~ 45min to 1 hr. to post this response to help Redline. I'm really frustrated right now and I have better things to be doing with my time...
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By aussiebill - 15 Years Ago
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Bob, the delays affect most of us at sometime, what i,m saying is if you get heldup on the freeway driving home do you walk instead? i know jim and the guys monitor the site. Go work on the bird and come back to it.
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By Bob's 55 - 15 Years Ago
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Bill, you are 100% correct. I just got a little (lot) frustrated because I wanted to help the guy and I had to rewrite it so many times. But I went and had a cold one and figure NEXT time I will just write my thoughts in MS Word and copy and paste it to the site.
Thanks alot...
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By redline - 15 Years Ago
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Thank you for your time committment & informative response. I think what you said makes sense. I assumed someone must have screwed-in a plug into the threaded fitting on the passenger side when the original sending unit(s) were removed for whatever reason. They may have been long-gone before I ever came along. The wiring was a total mess for everything. I have fixed every light, guage, horn & indicator on the car. This is the last thing I have to get working. I will look for the fitting you are talking about and consult with my car club guys to find out how do install it. I too had a lot of trouble posting my question earlier today. I was all done typing it in the box and hit the preview button and all I got back was something about "...must use more than HTML characters..."? Fearing I'd loose it all, I copied the text into Notepad, changed the font to Courier and then opened a new post and copied it back in. I almost gave up as well!
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By paul2748 - 15 Years Ago
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Bob's 55 (4/18/2010)
The 1955 Ford V-8 does indeed have two temperature units, one in each head. Maybe the heads where replaced at sometime? According to the book on is a temperature sending unit and the other is a "thermal switch". The reason for this is "the possibility of one bank operating hotter than normal due to restricted flow".
You will need to get a bushing with the proper threads for your sending unit (unfortunately I can't remember the size, there are two bushings available). Knock out the plug in the passenger head a install your new bushing (press fit).
Many vendors carry these bushings, Tee-Birds, Larry's, Carpenter, Mac's, etc;
Are you sure about this. My 54, which was stock, had only one and the drivers side head. My 56 TBird has only one (same side) and the catalogs (CASCO-TBird and Dennis Carpenter-car) only show one. The last dual senders were the flathead (53 - maybe 54 in Canada)
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By Bob's 55 - 15 Years Ago
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Paul, I am sure as I had a '55 Ford with this set up and everything in quotes in my response is right out of the Ford Shop manual on page 141 as I am looking at it a I type. Even has a picture on page 141 figure 30. One is called the sending unit, the other a thermal switch.
Besides I believe the man already stated he purchased the units, he just was unsure how to install them???
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By PWH42 - 15 Years Ago
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I have two 55 Fords.One of them,I know is absolutely the way it left the factory.It has only one sender.It's in the left head.The other car has only one but I don't know for sure the history of it.
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By Bob's 55 - 15 Years Ago
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Redline, I looked it up and I believe you need the bushing with 3/8" female pipe thread in the bushing for your thermal switch. You may want to Double check me on this as since I cannot see the unit you have I can't be sure.
Part # 10911A '55-56. The other bushing is 1/4" pipe thread part # 10911B for '57 up. These #'s are from Tee-Bird Products www.tee-bird.com.
PW, do you have a '55 Shop Manual? Look on the page I stated, you'll see what I am talking about. Just curious though, how are you so sure your car is the same as it left the factory?? Have you owned it for 55 years... I'm impressed, haha.
Hope all this is of some help... I'm done.
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By Bob's 55 - 15 Years Ago
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Dang it, I got distracted by these other fellows. Your temperature gauge will work just fine without the thermal switch in the passenger side head if you install the proper sending unit in your drivers side head. The thermal switch was installed incase of "restricted coolant flow" (quote directly from Ford Shop Manual, page 141).
Good luck with your project, sounds like your researching and doing it right...
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By PWH42 - 15 Years Ago
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Bob...........No, I didn't buy it new,but I got it from the man that did.When I bought it 17 years ago,it only had 22,000 miles on it.He kept a written record of everything that was ever done to the car.The engine has never been worked on in any way.
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By Bob's 55 - 15 Years Ago
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Ok, your right and the 1955 Ford Shop Manual is wrong… ha,ha.
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By Brodie - 15 Years Ago
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Bob: The shop manual is indeed wrong in this case. Only 1 sender in the driver's side head. That isn't the only error in the 55 manual, by the way.
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By Bob's 55 - 15 Years Ago
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Well Redline, all these other fellas say me and the Manual and whoever sold you your parts are wrong so I guess I will go with that... Sorry if I misinformed you.
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By sgt0341 - 13 Years Ago
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Sorry to drag this one out of the inactive files, but I have a question regarding this stuff. I just bought a '55 Fairlane 272 (first classic, so I'm a babe in the woods) and the temp gauge starts out cold at start-up, then proceeds to scalding pretty quickly. I have read the previous posts and see that the '55 272 should have one temp sending unit on the driver's side (left) head, back toward the firewall. I have found that unit, but it would appear that a previous owner had put a thermal switch in its place (instead of the flat-head screw post that should be on the sending unit, there is a single plug type post, which I am gathering makes it a thermal switch). I am also gathering from the previous posts that there really is no need for a thermal switch on this engine...is that correct?
I have also found that there is a single wire leading from the head, where the thermal switch is apparently incorrectly located, to the bottom of the driver's side of the block where there is a temp sending unit that is also apparently misplaced. Is this where the thermal switch is supposed to be located? Or is this just a bad placement altogether?
If it is, it is my plan to disconnect the wire from the misplaced sending unit (toward the bottom of the block) and leave it in place as it is acting as a perfectly good plug the way is it and, if I don't do anything to it, I probably won't break it. Then, replace the misplaced thermal switch (in the driver's side head) with a new temp sending unit. I will need to swap the current spade connector that is linking the gauge wire to the thermal switch with a connector that will work with the sending unit, and will probably just cut off the connector that is currently attached to the misplace sending unit (at the bottom) and tape it off (leaving it there).
Does this make sense? I'd like to be able to answer who would have done it that way to begin with, but I can't. Thanks for taking the time to read this.
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By aussiebill - 13 Years Ago
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sgt0341 (8/6/2012)
Sorry to drag this one out of the inactive files, but I have a question regarding this stuff. I just bought a '55 Fairlane 272 (first classic, so I'm a babe in the woods) and the temp gauge starts out cold at start-up, then proceeds to scalding pretty quickly. I have read the previous posts and see that the '55 272 should have one temp sending unit on the driver's side (left) head, back toward the firewall. I have found that unit, but it would appear that a previous owner had put a thermal switch in its place (instead of the flat-head screw post that should be on the sending unit, there is a single plug type post, which I am gathering makes it a thermal switch). I am also gathering from the previous posts that there really is no need for a thermal switch on this engine...is that correct?
I have also found that there is a single wire leading from the head, where the thermal switch is apparently incorrectly located, to the bottom of the driver's side of the block where there is a temp sending unit that is also apparently misplaced. Is this where the thermal switch is supposed to be located? Or is this just a bad placement altogether?
If it is, it is my plan to disconnect the wire from the misplaced sending unit (toward the bottom of the block) and leave it in place as it is acting as a perfectly good plug the way is it and, if I don't do anything to it, I probably won't break it. Then, replace the misplaced thermal switch (in the driver's side head) with a new temp sending unit. I will need to swap the current spade connector that is linking the gauge wire to the thermal switch with a connector that will work with the sending unit, and will probably just cut off the connector that is currently attached to the misplace sending unit (at the bottom) and tape it off (leaving it there).
Does this make sense? I'd like to be able to answer who would have done it that way to begin with, but I can't. Thanks for taking the time to read this.The switch at lower part of block is oil pressure switch! 
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By sgt0341 - 13 Years Ago
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Well, that helps in some ways, but not so much in others. The wire leading to that bulb appears to be tied into the temp sending unit wire. I am fairly certain on this as there is resistance from the lead into the temp sender (which looks like its actually a thermal switch) to the lead into the oil pressure switch. I'm no electrical guy, but that tells me they're tied together. Does that sound right?
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By bergmanj - 13 Years Ago
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sqt0341, Take a look at the other two threads very close-by regarding fuel and temp guages - they may help your understanding. If I understand correctly, some of the early production '55's had both the temp sender in the 5, 6, 7, 8 cyl head, and the overheat switch in the 1, 2, 3, 4 head; this switch would go "open" upon being too hot, and send the TEMP guage soaring over "hot" in order to get the driver to pay attention; the sender was "in series" sith the switch to "ground", as I understand the original setup. Ford (apparently) dedided that the switch was an unnecessary production expense, and eliminated it fairly early-on in the '55 production year. Regards, JLB
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By sgt0341 - 13 Years Ago
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Hey, thanks for the help. I think I understand now. Theoretically, I think I've figured it out. I have a new temp sender on order, so we'll see if I do understand realistically when it gets here. I guess the only thing that's bothering me is that, as I previously mentioned, there appears to be a thermal switch where the temp sender should be. Given that the thermal switch should only activate when the coolant temp reaches 217 (or boiling), why is it showing hot now? I know there's coolant in it, I know the coolant is good, and I know that it's circulating. Could it just be that the switch is plugged in to the loom at the wrong place that's causing that?
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By bergmanj - 13 Years Ago
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sqt0341, Anything "could" be. Part of the issue here is that it's very difficult for any of us to troubleshoot remotely and "blind". All that I can do for the present is what's already been presented, for what information we have from you. For good or bad, the actual hands-on trouble shooting is up to you. As per the Manual test: have you tried (with key-off) to solidly "ground" the sensor wire to the engine block, then get into the car & momentarily turn-on the key to see if the TEMP gauge goes to below "cold". Do this only long enough for it to get just to below "Cold", then turn the key back-off right away; otherwise, you WILL burn-out the gauge! If it does go to below "cold", the gauge and wiring is probably O. K., per the maintenance manual. If not, you either have a wiring issue, or a bad gauge. Then, try a matched "sender", instead of the switch; and, let us know what the results are. We may then be able to help better based on results. Many of us will be more than happy to guide you along, as long as you provide specific questions dependent on what you "find". Regards, JLB
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By heberhal - 9 Years Ago
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Great info. I just bought a 55 Ford with only one sending unit on the drivers side. Based on what I have been reading it sounds like some one put the wrong sensor in. The temp gage stays on hot. There is a spot under the distributor on the pass side but never used. If I have only one sensor and mine is wrong, what sensor do I need?
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By heberhal - 9 Years Ago
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I got my temp gage to work . . .Loose wire
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