I brought the 450C home Wednesday. I won't put it to work for a few weeks so I'm servicing it and making minor repairs. I'll be bugging you guys with questions, I'm sure. Neither the coolant nor torque converter temp gauges are functional. They appear to be mechanical gauges. The Case replacement for the torque converter gauge (357043A1) is $467.50. From the pic it appears to be a VDO with an adapter on the sending unit. It fits a bunch of older Case machines. If the Case dealer stocks it, the parts guys will let me measure the threads, etc. to find a retrofit. It seems pretty straightforward to install electric gauges instead of the mechanical. Has anyone ever done this?
Any auto parts store should have mechanical gauges. They sometimes come with thread adapters.
I’d stick with mechanical gauges, Summit racing has a huge selection. I like the Stewart Warner gauges myself, they do have ones for oil temp in various temp ranges.
I've installed many electric driven gauges where originals were direct reading. Not hard to do but you must purchase the correct transmitter, (sending unit) to drive the gauge mechanism. The old SW baseline is the most copied in the aftermarket being 33 ohms is full scale deflection, 240 ohms is minimum scale deflection of the needle. Not really linear in operation but close enough. An electrical component that relates a pressure is a "transducer", and a component that relates temperature, or liquid level is a "transmitter", with either commonly referred to as a "Sender" in the automotive world. That little Case/Cummins engine should use NPT threads in the cavities you are looking to monitor, but conversion adapters are readily available to change from a metric pitch to NPT which most gauges use.
It turns out the coolant temp gauge works. I just hadn't let it run long enough to warm up. The connection for the transmission temp gauge is under the floor access plate and readily accessible so it shouldn't be a problem to replace. I changed the transmission fluid yesterday. The fluid was the color of engine oil but lower viscosity. I gave a sample to my Mobil distributor for analysis. A previous owner painted it "power tan" and generously coated the fuel valves, making them inoperable. Hopefully, it's enamel with no hardener as the good old aircraft coating/gasket remover isn't sold anymore. The Case dealer says power tan was original for its serial number, but the original color looks to be a lighter yellow. The radiator shroud is damaged on one side. The previous owner ran it with the side covers removed. I wonder if it ran hot, and he removed the covers to improve cooling. A new shroud is actually available from Case and not super expensive.