Thank you Al and all others who educated me on the function of this gauge. It came with the car when I bought it in 1992 and I figured it had something to do with oil pressure.

But it always would read 'hard over hot' [I was an instrument tech in the air force in another life] and was rarely showing anything other than that so I tended to ignore it.

Lately, it has been stuck in the hard over hot position until I tapped it with my keys to get it to rest position.

So, I am in the midst of getting the alternator looked at and installing new gaskets for the water pump and I noticed one of the leads to the two terminal sender was broken off. I am also changing out the bottom rad hose because I read somewhere it is a good idea to change them out from time to time.

I was going to change the water pump but when I realized it was the original Volvo pump and it seems to be tight and functional I decided to keep it and just change the seals and gasket [it had been leaking from the O ring style seal at the top of the pump]. Hey, a pump that has been going for the last 38 years should have another ten or so left in it. Right? I am a sucker for original equipment.

Anyways now I have another item to deal with. I plan to take out the BAR sender, clean it up and repair the broken connection. Keeping my fingers crossed that the sender itself is still functional. They are very hard to come by according to my local parts guy.

It looks like a bear to get out but I haven't gone under the car yet to see if I can get a better look at it from below.

I thought the sender was the oil pressure sensor and was corrected by my local parts guy.

Thanks again for your input, Art.

Bob