Mason alarm

lazyb5 · Post by **lazyb5** » Sat May 21, 2011 5:29 pm

Hi, has anybody had the symptom of when starting the car from cold the temp gauge is at the 10 oclock position. This started happening Thursday got in to drive home from work ,started the car and the temp sat at 10 oclock. It does go higher to its normal 12 oclock position but never goes to zero. Obviously i dont trust the gauge anymore , I have checked for loose wires and they are all still attached. I removed them and turned the ignition on and gauge was at zero. Any ideas anybody?. This has worked great for about 7 months since i fitted it but now?

ps it does still chirp when i put the ignition on.

Northern Bongolow · Post by **Northern Bongolow** » Sat May 21, 2011 5:34 pm

check the main engine earth to body,clean up and remake.(usually yellow stripped thick cable)
to test if this is the fault try putting an earth to the battery direct then touch the temp sender brass body,see if it affects the reading.its mounted at the front/driverside of the head,dont short the wire to the sender top terminal though.

or even a poor live connection at the top terminal on the sender.

lazyb5 · Post by **lazyb5** » Sat May 21, 2011 5:39 pm

Cheers ady i`ll start there. May even buy a new sensor, i like the mason it worked well and dont want to be without it.

Northern Bongolow · Post by **Northern Bongolow** » Sat May 21, 2011 5:43 pm

ive had a few problems with mine, and have spoken with mr mason on several occasions and so has someone else who is on here now

.
the sender or the gauge will not be the problem,(trust me) ive spent hours on just this problem.

jaylee · Post by **jaylee** » Sat May 21, 2011 5:56 pm

Hi lazyb5,

Funny you mention that because i'm currently working on a theory....

A half arsed theory i stress to add... But at least i'm avin a go!

Alot of links to alot of reading but here goes....! http://www.igmaynard.co.uk/bongo/forum/ ... nture+peep

Then i went over my system to find out what the deal is.... http://www.igmaynard.co.uk/bongo/forum/ ... =3&t=48847

The Ford Scorpio has a different type of PCB to the Bongo, but this was interesting too... http://www.fordscorpio.co.uk/coolanttempgauge.htm

To summarize;

Well, it is only a half cocked theory...

But, i reckon the original Bongo design of the temp gauge (maybe due to out sourced development.?) was prone to wild fluctuations under prototype stage due to the dodgy low resistance wiring when any real load was put on the electrical system... There was no real long term view to this being a problem (when Ford bought into Mazda.)

when the vehicles aged & went beyond warranty, so the short term cheap solution was to damp the gauges with a diode that only moves the dial when it overheats....?? 15 years later & alot of fiddling with pipes, pumps, stats & rads.. Fitting the Mason & charging our phones we are near as damn it back to square one with the prototype!

jaylee · Post by **jaylee** » Sat May 21, 2011 5:59 pm

Northern Bongolow wrote:ive had a few problems with mine, and have spoken with mr mason on several occasions and so has someone else who is on here now .
the sender or the gauge will not be the problem,(trust me) ive spent hours on just this problem.

Sorry i took so long answering Ady...

Just had a knock on the door from the men in black....!

Northern Bongolow · Post by **Northern Bongolow** » Sat May 21, 2011 6:15 pm

stilldesperate is your man for the design/theory of the gauge itself. he used to make them.
he explained to me on a pub dart board with chalk how the gauge works, its basically a fixed voltage comes into the gauge,its then split down 2 legs (coils) and the resitance(temp) is measured across the 2 legs (coils) giving the reading.(if i understood him right)
it was said that the gauge itself is pretty foolproof and usually accurate, its the resisters that control the finished reading range, so you can pretty much make it read whatever you wish.

after setting up repeat tests at home with diff supply voltages and diff senders and gauges,the only variable factor that screwed it all up was the earth,which to me makes sense as the gauge measures resistance in the sender to give a reading.

probably geoff will come on and blow me to bits.but hey im not the brightest spark in the dizzy cap.

mikeonb4c · Post by **mikeonb4c** » Sat May 21, 2011 6:22 pm

Northern Bongolow wrote:probably geoff will come on and blow me to bits.but hey im not the brightest spark in the dizzy cap.

Then again, bright sparks might be dodgy for letting loose as petrol tanker drivers. It wouldn't need Geoff to blow you to bits.

Boom boom!

Literally

Northern Bongolow · Post by **Northern Bongolow** » Sat May 21, 2011 6:28 pm

the dimmer the better sometimes mike

the antistatic underwear helps

mikexgough · Post by **mikexgough** » Sat May 21, 2011 6:57 pm

Never had an issue with my Mason alarm....top notch IMHO....

missfixit70 · Post by **missfixit70** » Sat May 21, 2011 8:04 pm

Wonder if it's where the Mason has been connected on the back of the pcb & broken one of the tiny wires by twisting it? Remember this happening with one or 2, but can't remember what the symptoms were.

dvisor · Post by **dvisor** » Sat May 21, 2011 8:14 pm

missfixit70 wrote:Wonder if it's where the Mason has been connected on the back of the pcb & broken one of the tiny wires by twisting it? Remember this happening with one or 2, but can't remember what the symptoms were.

I was one of those, Kirsty. In my case the gauge sat at zero, not 10 o/c

jaylee · Post by **jaylee** » Sat May 21, 2011 8:40 pm

Temp gauges makes my head hurt....

I've been working on a warning lamp to tell me when the rear wipers on...

Thas an art in itself!!!

Northern Bongolow · Post by **Northern Bongolow** » Sat May 21, 2011 9:37 pm

mikexgough wrote:Never had an issue with my Mason alarm....top notch IMHO....

i really rate them also mike,one of ours has one fitted and has been fine,just every now and again a bongo will come along that will not like the mason,(mine amongst them)i even fitted a new seperate voltage stabiliser to see if that helped but to no avail.
to be fair mr mason spent a lot of time and effort trying to help,and even replaced my unit but still no joy.
jaylee has some good ideas on this regarding load on the circuit etc. but i must admit i just did the haydn 1oo ohm mod on the gauge and moved on.

Northern Bongolow · Post by **Northern Bongolow** » Sat May 21, 2011 9:49 pm

ive just had a pm from the owner of a gauge that is reading just off the bottom all the time until the actual true(ish) temp takes over, he has had a good auto sparky on the case after i could not fix it,he states that the sparky could not find a fault in the circuit/sender or gauge, or wiring, when he did extensive tests.

.
he put the fault down to the resister on the back of the gauge.
this is not the fix though,as i have swapped them,and even altered their values and used better quality m.o.d ones,still no fix.

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