• Hi Guest!
    You can help ensure that British Car Forum (BCF) continues to provide a great place to engage in the British car hobby! If you find BCF a beneficial community, please consider supporting our efforts with a subscription.
    There are some perks with a member upgrade!
    **Upgrade Now**
    (PS: Subscribers don't see this gawd-aweful banner
Tips
Tips

TR2/3/3A TR3 Temperature gauge

Share this page

B

bkmdano

Freshman Member
Offline
Hello,
I’m restoring a Tr3 for my mother in law. I’m looking for a temperature gauge. Seems these are hard to find. Thought I would reach out for any ideas to help me find one.

Thanks
Dan
 
If you have an old broken one, it can be fixed, and usually the repairs are like new. I do not know the professionals who that now, but someone should. Plus there is a clone on evilbay
 
For what it's worth, I got 2 quotes, one from Nisonger, $171 (2 years ago), and one from West Valley Instruments which was a few dollars more. I went with Nisonger and the final bill came in at about $140 including shipping. I cannot account for the price drop but it would seem that they don't have a standard fee. It did come back as new.

I was not aware of Rimmer's reproduction at the time but probably would have gone that route based on the above quotes.

Tom
 
There is a guy that does reproduction gauges. He advertises on E bay. They look very good. Hard to tell they are not original except they are very clean.
I will see if I have a close up and find his name.

David
TR dash running.jpg
 
I've been on the prowl for 7 years for a good faced original or an NOS. In fact it's the only part I am still looking for after completing the resto 3 years ago. I'm afraid I'll be racing you for the next one that pops up!
 
CJD said:
I've been on the prowl for 7 years for a good faced original or an NOS. In fact it's the only part I am still looking for after completing the resto 3 years ago. I'm afraid I'll be racing you for the next one that pops up!
Click to expand...
Just curious, did you see the link I posted to a NOS gauge for sale?
 
TR3driver said:
Just curious, did you see the link I posted to a NOS gauge for sale?
Click to expand...

I had missed that...but all over it now! Sorry Dan. I go this one, but it was on the very high side for price (I'm still sitting down after forking out the bucks). I hope the next one that comes along is lower...and I am no longer competing with you.

Thanks, Randall!
 
Good to hear it went to a car that can make good use of it. Something like that does not come up very often.

Looking at my E bay reproduction I do see the needle is mount is different to the other gauges. May break down and get one from Rimmer to look more correct.

David
 
I am not trying to rock the boat here, but the original temp gauges I have had all had iron or metal nuts that holds in the bulb, not brass. The NOS ones shown could be like factory later stuff I do not know. The first one that John bought could be steel; it is hard to tell from the pic.
 
CJD said:
...I go this one, but it was on the very high side for price (I'm still sitting down after forking out the bucks)...
Click to expand...

Possibly an eye-watering price but I think that is the market now.

I bought a nice one (but not as nice as yours) a few years ago that was poorly listed on eBay (didn't show up in the usual TR search) for 10 bucks then tested it, took better photos and relisted it. Sold for over $300 to a fellow in Italy who nearly doubled his money when he sold it on the European eBay site.
 
sp53 said:
I am not trying to rock the boat here, but the original temp gauges I have had all had iron or metal nuts that holds in the bulb, not brass...
Click to expand...

John's looks like steel to me, possibly cad plated. The other one is presented as 'New Smiths Industries Limited' so possibly new, not NOS. But even that one looks to me to have a steel nut with some yellowish finish on it.
 
Geo Hahn said:
But even that one looks to me to have a steel nut with some yellowish finish on it.
Click to expand...
I agree. If you look closely, you can see places where the yellowish coating is damaged and the whitish steel is showing through.
 
Seems like the minutest of minutia but I suppose at these prices you would expect the item to be perfect. It would also be good to know what perfect is. I think it is reasonable to assume that the bulb nuts were plated when originally installed. The evidence I have of that is the original nut on my car has not all rusted away and the gauge still works. It is most definitely ferrous. If I'm not mistaken,the plating could have been zinc or cadmium or maybe something else, both of which could have some color other that silver. I also have a recently rebuilt gauge with a new bulb nut and tube. The new nut on that appears to be plated with a silver colored coating and it is also definitely ferrous.
It seems reasonable to believe the Smiths used off the shelf nuts and there is a good chance that the nuts were not all the same throughout the production. A yellow nut might not be out of the question but it surely makes you wonder about the provenance of the one on ebay. The needle attachment doesn't look quite right either.
The Rimmer repros are looking better all the time.
Tom
 
Good call on the needle not looking correct Tom. I have taken a few apart and they are basically the same as an oil gauge with the same insides.
 
You're right Tom - on that eBay one the needle attachment is very visible at the gauge face, plus I don't see a needle stop on it. I dug out a gauge head I have and the attachment is lower and not visible. It happened to have an unusual PN, "X.80500/3 RT 70", so I took some pictures if anyone is interested. At these prices I should graft a new bulb onto it.
P1110306.jpgP1110304.jpg

FWIW, I have an original gauge I got off a parts car in the late 80s; the bulb nut is definitely ferrous and pretty rusty.
 
Thanks JP, but I got the one off Ebay...and afraid I fueled driving prices even higher. When you're down to the last item for a set in a collection that last item is always the most expensive?!

I think the OP, Dan, is still looking, but he hasn't been back since the OP...
 
Back
Top