I don't have an analog dash anymore but I think it is on the tranny. If there is only one temp gage then it is in the engine oil pan close by the tranny. you have to have the car up in the air to see it. jackstands are your friend.

 

Sorry for my omission ............... I forgot to mention that I DO have the needle (analog) dash. Thanks. Will look tomorrow. I found is a sketch in the FSM, but it is so limited that I can't tell where it attempting to show it is mounted.

 

EL-93 in the fsm shows it on the pan left side. You need to learn to look at several things in the fsm to sometimes find what you need. remember it is formatted in Japanese logic not American

you may find the wire broken off. if still attached ground it with ignition on and the gage should pin out meaning everything but the sensor is working. if you poke around the fsm you will find a resistance chart for the sensor. VOM be good thing to have. sensor is in a dry well so you can pull it out. On my 85 that gage never really seemed to work right. Oil temp seemed to lag behind the coolant temp.

 

On my 85 that gage never really seemed to work right. Oil temp seemed to lag behind the coolant temp.

Yes, and that's correct. Oil takes much longer to heat up than the coolant does. Oil is part of the car's cooling system, and in all vehicles it takes much longer to heat up than the water coolant does....IME 3-4 times as long.

 

Thanks Rogerz,
Now that I located the device, I found that the actual sensor is defective.
I'm an electrical engineer so I wish it was a simple broken wire to splice.
I located the resistance test data (10-80 ohms). Unfortunately, I have an open-circuit inside the actual sensor which is pretty well sealed, so that prevents opening it up to even attempt a band-aid repair.
After more than an hour of searching on several dozen sites, I can't find a proper replacement on Internet.
O'Reilly had a listing for it, but unfortunately they say it is no longer stocked. A lot of other sites incorrectly provide links to an oil-temp SWITCH, which will obviously NOT work for an analog temperature signal.

Can any long-time users suggest a source for the correct oil-temp sensor for an analog (needle) dash?
Even the correct Nissan P/N might be of some help in searching.

Thx.

 

try NAPA, Courtesy Nissan, Rock Auto etc. Maybe Ebay. altho as I said I found it pretty useless on my 85T. EE you should be able to locate a temp sensor that works as long as the thread is correct. even if the resistance curve is not just the same you only care about repeatability of the result not the actual temp itself.

 

Bingo with Courtesy Nissan !!
Before I made original post, I had tried almost every place you noted plus a host of others. However, I didn't try Courtesy. In case anybody else is looking, they show it as P/N 25080-89903. Like a lot of other parts, it was also used on a number of other Nissan models and also as a coolant temp sensor. No real surprises about that. However, I wanted to make sure it would physically match the bung & thread size. I also realize the usefulness, accuracy and response-time as an oil-temp sensor is rather limited. As an electrical guy, I simply want to return all of my existing gauges to a functional status. My wife and adult kids all say I'm like Sheldon Cooper from Big Bang Theory. Maybe they are right.

Thanks for the Courtesy suggestion. The genuine Nissan P/N was also cheaper than the other substitutes I found that were all "non-stock".

Great forum . . . . quick replies . . . . thanks

 

I salute you! If there's a gauge on the dash, I want it working. It's when you start letting this item and that item stop working that the car starts going downhill fast.

 

you can get a good quality, but used oil temp sensor from Steve over at www.300zxpartsforyou.com

not too expensive.

Bon

 

Thanks for sharing your ultimate solution with Courtesy Nissan. Even though I might not be facing a similar issue as of now, this tip might just come in handy should the same situation were ever to befall upon me. I agree that this forum is a great platform whereby contributors are very helpful and willing to share personal experiences!