Temp and Pressure Gauges

[lloydy]

Not that i've got the money to rush out and get some, but where is the best place to get them? is electrical the best? do they all come with the sender? and what cable do you use?
And lastly what ones do i need other than/instead of oil temp, oil pressure, water temp, for a JX, maybe volts or turbo boost?
think thats enough questions

[AdrianC]

Not that i've got the money to rush out and get some, but where is the best place to get them?

Have a google - there's a whole bunch of motorsport & chav suppliers selling various qualities and prices. I found Demon Tweeks about the best prices & range.

is electrical the best?

Depends on if you want to run a tube of hot oil around the van, or just a wire.

do they all come with the sender?

No, and the senders can be expensive - you need to match brands if buying separately. They'll say when they do. Watch the threads, too. According to Brickwerks, the VW pressure senders are M10, but 1/8" is the usual for the senders. Some come with adaptors, some don't.

and what cable do you use?

Assuming electrical guage, then just a bit of wire... There's very little current passing, it's just the resistance that's being measured.

[lloydy]

Quite an expensive game this gauge business! Cheers for reply

[axeman]

most dont come with senders, opinions differ as to mecanical or electrical, electrical are easyer to instal. decide what you want to know, the reason that i installed a pressure gauge was that i was having problems with the BoD a gauge tells me exactly what is going on.

i made a proper loom and ran it front too back (engine bay to dash) in conduate and ran an extra 3 wires in the loom for future use, cant remmber now but it was not high amp cable something like 10amp as it is a low currant signal from the senders.

as your running a standard jx i would not bother with a boost gauge, as this will be a mecanical gauge and involves running a long vacume line to the gauge and wont realy tell you any thing that you dont know.

neil

[syncroandy]

I'd recommend an EGT gauge to anyone with a TD, most informative about how much fuel you're burning.

[syncropaddy]

I'd recommend an EGT gauge to anyone with a TD, most informative about how much fuel you're burning.

????? I know how much fuel I burn ..... a gallon every 30 miles!

I've been thinking about EGT gauges and their advantages/disadvantages ..... in the real world and off the race track, what advantage is an EGT gauge?
It tells you you exhaust gas temperature - so?
It tells you how much fuel you are burning - yeah? so does my fuel gauge!
What do you do in the real world with the information it gives you ..... ??

[syncroandy]

Err, back off a bit ?

Duh !

[syncroandy]

Oops, forgot and broke the golden rule: DONT FEED THE TROLLS !

[syncropaddy]

Err, back off a bit ?

Duh !

A 'back off a bit' gauge !! Useful on a long autobahn incline .......

[syncropaddy]

Oops, forgot and broke the golden rule: DONT FEED THE TROLLS !

PM

[syncroandy]

A 'back off a bit' gauge !! Useful on a long autobahn incline .......

Exactly

[HarryMann]

i am looking in to relocating the sender in to the oil take of plate fro the oil cooler so i know the temp oil where it is doing something. rather than in the sump either returned from doing something or about to do something

I really wouldn't bother Neil, sump temp is fine, its not sitting in ther long before pumped a round, and if you want a different temp (say gallery), then just guess a Delta T which will be pretty constant. Any temp is fine for reference, no-ones making any great assumptions about absolute values. Just need to know if its higher than normal, and if so, where it's going, up or down again Info >> back off or keep climbing. Much less sensitive to load on a petrol anyway.


Boost.. no, not for std JX, though can be useful if there's any doubt if its boosting or not (which can happen, fairly obvious though )


As for EGT... oooer! I see it also as a 'back off a bit gauge' and very useful when over-fuelling, tuning and going for more power.. in fact together with oil temp, will keep you safe up those Alpine climbs (& we know almost every year there can be tears over that one)

[torchy]

Do a search on eBay for a brand called TIM much cheaper than vdo ones and look the same. Also look for Jaguar guages, you can get a full set of clocks really cheap

I have oil temp,
oil preasure,
boost guage,
actual water temp (this is vital IMHO)
volt guage (also vital IMHO)

Jed

Thanks I'll do a search for TIM and Yep this is what I would consider worth having in electric where there is a choice. question now is where to put the senders.

Oil pressure off one of the alarm holes (is this M10x1 or .....?)
Oil Temp, where to put that one because it has to be flowing past to be any good?
Water temp same as above or can you just strap a sensor on one of the pipes, and if so where to get one?

...also is it worth getting this? (although only for VDO)

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll? ... K:MEWAX:IT" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;


Many thanks everyone for the input, As Lloydy says it's an expensive business this getting gauges, for sure "it's do once do it right"

[Syncro G]

Oil presure threads on a diesel is M10x1, common for VWs but not for much else. 1.6 engines tend to only have 1 tapping for a guage on the filter and another on the head, both are used for the dynamic oil presure sensors (usally low on head and high on filter though they are interchangable). There is also the turbo oil feed on the filter which uses a bigger thread, think its M12. If you have a 1.9 engine they tend to have 2 M10x1 tappings so you won't need an adaptor. The blocks are slightly different shapes so you can't fit a 1.9 filter head to a 1.6 to add guage ports. Possable another verient of 1.6TD had tappings (turbo +2 sender) but they are getting rare in scrappys now. Petrols golf often have 2 sender tappings (all cars with MFA need them) but lack the turbo port.

I like the idea of fitting temp guages direct so its near the oil flow for 'live' temp. Presure guages don't matter as they'll still see full presure in a Tee peice. Don't know how much difference this will make though. I moved the presure switches so they are both on the head and used the filter head for temprature - this is a good place for temprature as its after the cooler and just before it goes into the oil system, ie just before it goes off and cools stuff - if its hot here its really not good! Tricky bit was finding a Tee peice with M10 fittings all round, as thats what all the sensors I use are being from VWs (got VAG or VDO logos on them, that pleases me). When I go 1.9 I'll ditch the tee peice and move the high presure switch back to the filter in the second tapping.

As Neil's said before my standard JX gets rediculously hot, I reguarly get 120...130degC on the motorway (thats crusing at about 65mph in a light van) and I have had it sneek to 140 in the past on a hot day, thats when I really slow down! It does drop to 130degC pritty quick from there but getting under 120 is not possable above 50mph. Its worth noting I used to moniter the sump temp and that that tended to sit around 80...90degC, never went much higher, 10deg lower without the bashplate and much colder in the wet - goes to show how different the two places are, I wouldn't rely on the sump again!

For presure I actully replaced the low presure senosor with a combined sender/switch - I robbed it from a scrap V6 Audi 100 Quattro (which oddly didn't have aux guages but it had senders, M10 of course). The low presure switch was 0.3bar as they should be and its 0...5bar sender range too so works with genral VDO clock - some VAG fitted aux guages are 0...7bar which is unusual - make sure you get the right sender! As senders cost about £50 new I think theres a few good resions for using second hand VW senders in my view, providing they are still acurate; that is 1)cheeper 2)M10 fitting 3) corect warning switch presure - oddly a lot of motorsport places sell combined sender/switches but don't know and won't tell you the switching presure - I think thats an important bit of spec! Whilst I like the guages I want to keep a fully functioning warning light/alarm as thats whats most likely to alert me to a problem, the guage is an indipendant system to make sure (given the built in redundancy of the VAG DOP system this has lots of backup).

Guages really have to be electric, for mecanical oil you'll have to have about 6m of oil capilury which will probubly have a presure drop on it before eventually leaking and poring oil all over the back of your dashbord like they do! For temp you'll need to route a capilury all down the van, which will involve drilling big holes in pannels to get the bulb through (its filled and sealed with something dodgy so though pipe is small you need big holes to fit one. It'll probubly have to be custom made as no one normal would need one that long - save them for 70's BL cars!

As for more guages to go OTT with, don't bother with an ammeter - they might be handy for judgeing what your drawing off a leasure batt and how long it'll last but it has no use in a normal cars electrics on modern vehicles. They were esenchal on dynamo vehicles when you needed to know at night if your headlights and heater were actully taking more than your weedy dynamo could cope but you don't need them with altinators for many resions:-
1) altinator is a lot more powerful
2) altinator trys to stabalise voltage at about 14v, if the voltage drops below this it'll start making current to push it back up, lower it gets harder the alt works so you'll have a bit of a drop when the alt is really working, but if the voltage drops massively you can tell its not charging, from a volt guage!
3) genrally you have to run all the current the ameter sees through the guage, which means all your van through the dash - both a fire risk and a likely bit of resistance!
A volt meter on the other hand can be added anywhere on the ignition circuit with thin wires as it carrys no load. It will show you charging fauits when engine running as the voltage will drop to battery voltage (ie 12.8v max) and gives you battery status when off charge - all useful, and much more versatile than an ammeter which you should leave for a pre BL car, though it won't much use there eather as you should have binned that crappy dynamo for a manly altinator years ago which would probubly melt the guage (been there, done that! I don't like Lucas 16ACR altinators eather, they are almost as useless as dynamos).

[HarryMann]

Oil pressure off one of the alarm holes (is this M10x1 or .....?)

M10 x 1 is close enough to 1/8" NPT (USA, National Pipe Thread) Think they are both of the tapered form, in the oil housing head (as Glen says, of many 1.9s)

I have both oil pressure and oil temp in there, and pretty sure it reacts to oil temp appropriately, because within 1 minute of starting up any hill of note, I can see the oil temp rising (quickly)... even with 7.5 litres of oil and an 18 row cooler. So if you have a blanked port there, use it without worry.

Can't see why the normal water temp gauge isn't sufficient (or perhaps I should read the thread back?)