Today I installed an Auto Meter / Auto Gauge model #2355 coolant temp gauge in my '06 Sportsman 800. It was surprisingly straightforward and simple and I was done and cracking my first beer within 90 minutes. I probably could have finished it in 45 but I was kickin' with my old man trading work horror stories of the week.

I ordered the gauge from SummitRacing.com for $37.20 shipped to my door Thursday night and it arrived last night, a mere 48 hour turnaround. Impressive.

The kit came with the gauge, hardware, front mounting bracket (thrown right away), rear mounting bracket, sending unit and a couple of NPT adapters. The 1/8x27 NPT tap ran me 12.38 at the plumbing supply house next to where I work. I also spent $4.14 on a package of six 6-inch by 1/4 inch double wall heat shrink with glue. I had all the wiring and connectors in the garage already.

Install was about as simple as possible. The back of the gauge had three studs, key-on-power, ground and signal. Since I never use my cig lighter in the pod, I piggybacked with a couple cheater-connectors and drew power (inline ATC fuse holder and 10 amp fuse of course added) and ground from that. I snaked down a single wire to the thermostat cover for the single signal wire. The light bulb in the gauge had two tiny little wires, red and black coming from the unit. I wired them straight to the power and ground connectors so whenever the key's on, the light is on. I figured this was easiest.

I popped off the left side cover (the one nearest your left knee while sitting on the machine) and low and behold the thermostat cover was right there. A couple turns of the worm clamp and off came the radiator hose, two little bolts held the cover on and off she came. I used a couple of self tapping sheetmetal scews to secure the cover to a piece of scrap 2x4 and put that in the table vice. I worked my way up incrementally from super tiny to a 3/8 drill bit through the boss (I swear this cover was designed to have a sending unit installed and then they decided at the last minute to not use it, it's TOO perfect). Back and forth with the 1/8 NPT tap with a liberal amount of white lithium grease and then a good cleaning and she was all done with the sending unit screwed in and snugged down.

A 1.5 inch hole saw blew through the face of the pod right to the right of the cluster but I installed it too high and had to work the material down with a grinding stone for the gauge to sit flush. Once wired up, the mounting bracket on the backside needed another 1/4 inch under the lugs so I trimmed some old/new fuel line and it slid over the three studs (rubber insulated) and screwed down tight.

I screwed the pod back together and fired her up. I saw coolant everywhere and shut her down, re-connected the radiator hose, tightened her up, filled her up and tried it again. No leaks this time. Sweet. The coolant was a freebee from work, but I wouldn't suggest using BMW coolant like I did - $24/gallon retail is exclusively for people with more money than brains.

She came up to 190 degrees F within 5 minutes and the fan turned on, she dropped back to 180 and the fan shut off. What an awesome kit for the money! My father said it looked factory, like it was supposed to be there which was the best possible thing he could have said right then.

I'll snap some pictures as soon as the rain dies down (figures).

I hope this helps anyone on the fence about whether or not to install this gauge.

Semper fi, Erik

 

Reference Material:

Summit Racing: Auto Gage 2355 - Auto gage Analog Gauges - Overview - SummitRacing.com

Auto Meter's site with PDF instructions: Auto Meter

1/8 NPT Tap: Design Engineering DEI 190023 - DEI Ny-Trex Thread Chasing Taps - Overview - SummitRacing.com

Sweet heat shrink with glue (the only way to go): West Marine: Adhesive-Lined Heat Shrink Tubing (ALT) Product Display

 

After reading your post I see you made a mistake!!!

Your first step in this project or any hobby/home project should be to crack a beer. I look forward to seeing the pics.

Jim

 

put one on my 06' i had as well. fan kicked on about 210 and off at 190 just so you have a refernce to go by.

 

I made up for the hard sober work in spades afterward., don't you worry! Though I ruined it by eating about 47 lbs of the best Chinese food I've ever had. I want to die I overate so much.

 

I wonder if our gauges are different or our thermostats are different. Hmmmm

 

Its still raining like hell here - in the morning I'll post some pictures of the gauge in the pod & some of the thermostat housing. Really came out like factory.
Wonder still if the gauge is that much off or what the difference is? Just tried it again & the fan came on about 200 degrees & shuts off about 180. Gauge is analog so who knows how accurate it is.

 

know they should be the same therm, in them as mine was the same as yours. as far as the temsp goes a differnce of 10 degrees most likely just the gage or maybe a differnt sending unit as mine was from quadovator, but i think it was the same gage. i can tell you from experince that a clean radaitor makes a huge difference in how the temp runs for sure.

 

The radiator in my machine has less than 10 miles on it due an issue with me moving vs. a tree. Anyhow - its the same gauge that quadovator uses with the same sender but who knows with an analog gauge anything is possible. Quadovator put the part numbers up and I searched for them. Nice to keep an eye on the temp before the dummy light has to come on. Great mod though, can never monitor enough vital signs.

 

Sun came out enough to take some crappy point and shoot pics.