Prior to Christmas, I obtained an Idro-Stop temperature sender 60.60123 which only had a single connecting tag for the gauge needle (eBay listing HERE). It is equivalent to Intermotor 52280. It is a sender for Smiths gauges, but must be for those cars around the '84 model year prior to the VDO clocks being used.
Anyway, it was an improvement on a dead needle, and at the very most, it climbed up to a quarter. Cheap and worked, but I'd got on order from the DCN at vast expense, a proper Volvo two tag sender. After swapping that one in, it read exactly the same - still around the quarter!
Over Christmas I was driving the car and I know it was extremely cold, but on short journeys, I couldn't even get the gauge to the read at the bottom of the green band. Anyway, I was back over the other day and my minder had been experimenting with bits of cardboard blanking off the rad. He could get the gauge to read just over a third, but then the warning light came on. 
I was armed with some stainless steel Jubilee clips salvaged from my ex-DAF and was ready to swap the old thermostat for my new 92º C one. Once swapped (it was a 89º C), and all muff material removed, the needle now reads up to bang on vertical, sometimes below, but within the range of the two tiny dots either side of the "N". Strangely, despite the needle now reading higher, the light doesn't come on. It really did come on earlier the day before and the needle hadn't even got to vertical.Let's have some Mk2 dashboard goodness
(click on image for larger view)
Also had the bonus of bringing the mate's BX diesel back from the dead after nearly 5 months (cambelt jumped, condemned by garage), by just replacing the new belt correctly and shortly after, replacing a dodgy bypass hose. (Feeling like Bicycle Repair Man!) That means he can stop borrowing my Volvo and stick it back in the lock-up.
