Herald Temp gauge fitting

[PeteH]

6 minutes ago, Tom said:

I find it unbelievable Triumph sold a car with absolutely no indication it was overheating and about to seize up???

Something not uncomon, in vehicles of this vintage and older.

[johny]

Ha, we've gone full circle as once more theres often no indication (well maybe a warning symbol)...

[Colin Lindsay]

28 minutes ago, Tom said:

I find it unbelievable Triumph sold a car with absolutely no indication it was overheating and about to seize up???

No to mention no seatbelt warning - in fact, no seatbelts - no cat, no tyre pressure sensors, no lambda sensors, no airbags, no open door, bonnet or boot warnings, no 'depress clutch before starting' warning, no ABS, no self-levelling suspension, no collision radar, no cruise control, no brake pad wear indicators, brake fluid level warning in fact not even a screenwash fluid level warning - in fact no screenwashers - no 'handbrake on' warning light and nothing at all to tell you you're towing a trailer, apart from which there was no little socket to plug something in to to tell you what was wrong. We knew to turn the lights on when it got dark and the wipers when it rained, and were perfectly capable of winding down a window or opening two doors, one at a time. How on earth did we manage? It did have coathooks, though.

[Tom]

I hear where you are coming from but engine temp is fundamental to engine health just as much as oil pressure and that has at least a warning light, the car even has a charge indicator and the worse thing that can happen when your gen or alt fails is the car grinds to a halt once the battery is flat. Seeing the temp creeping up to a danger point gives you the opportunity to save wrecking the engine, or adjust your driving style to suit the conditions. I just think it was a bit of false economy?

I love mechanical simplicity which is partly why I ride Eastern European two stroke motorcycles as that is about as simple as transport using the internal combustion engine can get.

[mark powell]

The usual indication of overheating, back in the day, was the smell of scalded components and the appearance of steam from various orifices.  Those symptoms always gave me enough time to pull over and investigate!  I never managed to wreck an engine.     Gaskets, yes.....

[johny]

yes our rad caps open well before any damage has been done (if you havent got an alloy head of course) and are brilliant as unlike a gauge it cant be missed or ignored by even the most mechanically ignorant driver😃

[Colin Lindsay]

11 hours ago, Tom said:

I hear where you are coming from but engine temp is fundamental to engine health just as much as oil pressure and that has at least a warning light, the car even has a charge indicator and the worse thing that can happen when your gen or alt fails is the car grinds to a halt once the battery is flat. Seeing the temp creeping up to a danger point gives you the opportunity to save wrecking the engine, or adjust your driving style to suit the conditions. I just think it was a bit of false economy?

I love mechanical simplicity which is partly why I ride Eastern European two stroke motorcycles as that is about as simple as transport using the internal combustion engine can get.

I think it was down to cost, the Herald was actually quite expensive compared to other cars of the period, and very few of those other 'entry-level' vehicles had any kind of additional gauge. I think the Anglia had, but the Minor didn't, nor the Mini. There was a thriving market in all kinds of add-on gauges, but rev counters were seen as solely the domain of rally drivers. Owners were very hands-on, you checked your car before every journey, you spotted any coolant loss, and you knew instinctively when something was wrong with the way it drove. You often carried water and spares and if a hose blew you bought one from the garage, off the shelf, as they were nearly all the same, not the cross between bagpipes and an octopus that you get these days. A burst hose will still go unexpectedly - even my 2002 TD5 Discovery blew a hose on the M6, with no warning, and a replacement was impossible to find locally, but the gauge still read 'normal' and I only realised when I saw the bursts of steam in the rear view mirror.

My cousin drove a Renault 5 Campus and it had no temperature gauge, just a warning light - that was 30 years after the Herald and if you study the photograph I'll upload, it was as basic as the Herald was back in the day - just more plastic and not even a glove-box lid!

You walk into a Filling Station today, you can buy almond milk and pet food, but often not a headlamp bulb, and not even an emergency fan belt or a hose repair kit. I love working on the cars, like you, I like the mechanical simplicity, but I know more than a few people who have owned cars for some years and never once looked under the bonnet, and when the 'screenwasher fluid low' light comes on they go straight to the garage.

[NonMember]

38 minutes ago, Colin Lindsay said:

My cousin drove a Renault 5 Campus and it had no temperature gauge, just a warning light

Same on SWMBO's 2002 Yaris - full digital dashboard but no temperature gauge.

[Tom]

Love that Renault 5! Reminds me a little of my old 1986 Renault 11, fabulous car!
 

I’ve  always gone for small base model cars, Fiat cinquecento, Punto and now a Polo manual windows no AC, the only extravagance it has is ABS. There’s a purity that comes from having less and looking under the bonnet of my Herald and knowing the function of every single part is strangely comforting.

I’m a serial ‘checker’ always keep on top of the fluids, tyre pressures etc it’s unbelievable how many folk never check anything, so many people are completely disconnected from their vehicles now, I suppose some of it comes from most people not even owning them just lease them for 3 years and move onto the next lifestyle choice? If they thought I have to get at least 10 years of motoring from this car maybe they’d care more?

Still want a temp gauge though😆

[Tom]

Well I’ve struck lucky there’s a pump housing with a tap off heading my way👍🏼
 

I won’t be fitting it right away but I can start thinking about mounting the gauge. I also have collected over the years all the bits and bobs needed for an oil pressure and charging gauge so potentially I could go the whole hog and have a row of three mounted under the dash in the centre? 
 

yes I know this is funny after our previous chat about minimalism driving😆 but I do find like the idea of being able to monitor these three parameters and I think if tastefully done does not detract from the car and it can all be returned to standard easily should I think I’ve made a mistake.

Any advice on mounting would be great.

[Colin Lindsay]

I'll be fitting a Vitesse dashboard to my Herald over next winter which has holes for two additional gauges... decisions.... a rev counter as I like to watch the revs, and the other will probably be oil. THEN I'll realise what's happening with the engine, which at present sounds perfectly fine, and start to panic.

[Jeffds1360]

Tom, if yours has the Ash tray in the central top position, I found that very handy. For the others, I used the demister duct.

[Pete Lewis]

this hoe mine were on the Vit6 

[Colin Lindsay]

This is a local Herald photographed on a recent run:

I've managed to find an amazingly small rev counter that will fit into the 2-inch hole on the Vitesse dashboard, so once I've removed the shroud and fitted a 'normal' bezel I can fit it there and so keep the two large Herald clocks.

 

[Tom]

I think I’m going to go with the underslung idea like the Vitesse pic but maybe in a black leather looking Vinyl on top of plywood. Fixed to the underside of the dash with metal brackets of some description.

[Josef]

I made my Herald radio and gauge mount from some aluminium angle (or U channel, can’t remember, won’t matter though) and strip. An approx 1x25 mm strip pushes under the top of the brackets for the under dash millboard and two parallel angle sections are riveted to this. The other ends of the angle sections sit under the lip of the dash and are riveted to some existing holes, though have no idea if the holes are original! The radio box I then made from scrap plywood and it screws on to the aluminium angle with self tappers. It turned out pretty neat, and you can still get the tunnel out, and indeed the whole gearbox, with it in place.

[Colin Lindsay]

Some of the dashboard support rails have two brackets for radio fitting, some have two holes, and some have nothing at all - depends on the period in which they were made.

[Gary Flinn]

I bought a radio mounting plate finished as per the dashboard with the facility for two addition 2" Diameter Gauges, this was mounted to the centre as shown

Looks good and means you don't have to cut the dash, someone used to sell similar metal engraved ones on E-Bay but not seen them for a while? 

 

[Colin Lindsay]

19 minutes ago, Gary Flinn said:

Looks good and means you don't have to cut the dash, someone used to sell similar metal engraved ones on E-Bay but not seen them for a while? 

Still available, more than one maker selling them and some you can get with 'Herald' or 'Vitesse' included.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/164281702424?hash=item263ff3d818:g:Xq8AAOSwHnxfBaYL

[mark powell]

You can make your own out of a spare glovebox lid...

[Badwolf]

That looks looks smart. I want a Smiths analogue time clock, 52mm black face silver bezel, but the prices are more than I want to pay. There looks to be a high demand or scarce secondhand, as none on fleabay under £60.