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I have the feeling that this question is so dumb and the answer so obvious that I am reluctant to put it on the forum. But what the heck. Here goes! In putting my 1953 MD58270 back together, I find that my spider harness has 4 "female" Douglas connectors. Thus the spider harness will only connect to the right hand connector (looking at the back of the gauge). I have checked 3 temperature gauges and all three have the male Douglas connector on the "outside" i.e. on the right when looking at the back. This seems to be standard procedure inasmuch as the fuel and pressure gauges all have the male on the right when looking at the back. But when I go to TM9-804A at Fig. 89 (page 193) I see the spider harness wire going into the left hand connector on the rear of the temperature gauge and the right hand connector on the pressure and fuel gauges. Then I checked a thread on this site. On May 16, 2006 Cacti_Ken posted a "Question on Wiring Diagram". GregS responded on 17 May saying "Power to those gauges is supplied by the instrument harness which is wire "27". The "inside" terminal of the fuel, oil and temp gauges are connected to the wiring harness. The "outside" terminal on those gauges connect to the sending units." I presume that position is referred to as "inside" because that connection is closer to the center of the instrument cluster than the other connection of the gauge. The manuals all agree that the wire connecting the temp gauge to its sending unit should be number "33". I don't have that wire made up yet, so I can't check to see if it ends in a male or female Douglas connector. If the spider should go to the inside of the temp gauge, then one of the Douglas connectors would have to be male. I wonder, did someone switch the Douglas connector on one of the wires of my spider harness from male to female or are the TM and GregS wrong and if so, why has no one corrected them? I am stuck and would appreciate your help. Thanks again David aka bluewatersailor.

All of the illustrations in TM's 9-804 (M38), 9-8012 (M38), 9-804A (M38A1), and 9-8014 (M38A1/M170) show the inboard terminal as +24V on all three powered gages except the early M38 cluster with the 90 ohm resistors connected in line with the gage and the M170 cluster which is a hermaphrodited Packard combined with Douglas connector spider.


These illustrations are from TM 9-804 & TM 9-8012 for the M38. The early illustration shows the 90 ohm resistors and shows the water temp gauge +24V on the outboard.

I, too am looking at the right-hand picture. I am unable to accomplish the connection shown, so I must conclude that 1 of the 4 connectors on the spider harness has to be different from the other 3, i.e. - it has to be male in order to connect to the inside terminal of the temperature gauge. Confirm?