Put a push button start on a while back and after putting a new column cylinder in last weekend it burnt up the e brake wire going into the ignition switch...my buddy gave me a couple switches so I decided to go ahead and delete the ignition switch...well I got everything hooked up and on the initial start up my temp gauge was reading like 250 right when I started it up, and it kept going up as it warmed??

sounds good I'll start with that...the e brake wire that grounds they the ignition switch is what burnt up. I think it got crossed with some power but I don't want to waste anymore time speculating it'll drive me crazy again lol. The more electrical things I do the more butt connectors and other sorts of bad splicing the PO had done..my xj was rode hard and put away wet figuratively and literally when I got it been fixing it up the last year and electrical is all I have left to do

Pulled the instrument panel out so I could take a look at the connections and everything looks pretty good...didn't get a chance to clean the connector/ground but I'm going to take the opportunity to run a jumper on the ground aka #18 on cruisers renix manifesto. And if that doesn't work, is there anything else I should focus my attention on before I start testing temp sensor and sender??

No go with that so I'm going to test the sensor now. Not positive off the top of my head which one controls the gauge but I'll start with the one on top of the head.

Still no go...sender is good, and I went ahead and cleaned up the connectors and ribbon on the back of the IP...do I have a short to ground?? I read on a thread it'll peg the gauge if you ground the wire that connects to the sender. I think I'm a look into that next..if I'm overlooking something please chime in!!

Still no go...sender is good, and I went ahead and cleaned up the connectors and ribbon on the back of the IP...do I have a short to ground?? I read on a thread it'll peg the gauge if you ground the wire that connects to the sender. I think I'm a look into that next..if I'm overlooking something please chime in!!

So I grabbed my multimeter and I got an ohm of resistance between the sender connector and the neg terminal on the battery...I should have infinite resistance there shouldn't I??

Having a hard time finding a diagram that tells me where that wire from the sender is going...I traced the wire back to the connector going to the fuse box...but unsure what fuse it's running through or if it's running straight to the IP?? When I retested the resistance I pulled the gauge, hazard, and dome fuses and got a .000 resistance from the sending unit connector to the neg terminal

ok I got it!!! I had the sender and brake warning wires from the ignition switch on the ground instead of the load on my switch light. Had to make a mess of my wiring harness to figure it out but if the collateral of that is putting a better connector on for the sender and cleaning a bunch of dirt mud and crud that was stuck in the wiring that'll be ok. The man upstairs wanted me to get that done apparently lol...thanks for the help I really appreciate your time and patience with my marginal electrical skills...Until next time