[Dave at Pelican Parts]

The sender for the temp gauge is inside the bottom of the engine. Look for the two round sump plates; the one in the left-front corner of the engine (held on by two bolts) should have a wire coming out of it. The sender is up in there, and the wire carries the signal. The wire goes across the front of the engine under the engine tin, and there is a connector near where the throttle cable goes through the engine tin.

The sender is a variable resistor, so if the gauge always reads the same it is seeing the same resistance all the time. The gauge could be plugged into just a plain resistor somewhere, I guess.

Try unplugging the connector in the sender wire and see if the gauge reading changes. Also see if unplugging the sender wire from the gauge itself changes it. And make sure the wires are plugged in to the gauge correctly. That's probably the easiest thing to get wrong, and it might produce these symptoms.

--DD