Club 80-90 Forums

Hi everyone

So I now haves working tachometer in my van along with the pcb ribbon being replaced by a clustermaster repair kit from campervan culture. Now have another problem, the buzzer is going off when I rev the engine. Oil is cold and the right level in a standard sump. Other than checking the oil pressure (unlikely to be this as ran fine without my dash in ) does anyone have any experience with this happening to their conversion?

Many thanks

The standard Subaru oil pressure sensor , is a very poor design , it's a earth sensor so make sure you haven't earthed it out by mistake

From memory they only go off once your under .2 bar (its around this can't remember exactly ),, which is far to low as the damage is done by then, it's There to tell you it's time for a new engine more than a warning,, so we (Subaru community) normaly replace it for a aftermarket gauge as soon as we can and bin the old sensor

Soon as my engine is in I'll be putting a after market oil pressure gauge on as iv also had oil pumps fail in the Subaru engines (internal housing bolts work loose) and the gauges have saved my engine so I think there worth it in the long run

Um, how many oil switches did you fit to your engine, what spec are they and how did you wire them ?

Hi Andy

Not fitted any other switches. Just used the Rjes wiring loom conversion. Think I will get an oil pressure and temp gauge though. Once in, how do you disconnect the buzzer?

The VW dash after '85 has two oil switch inputs, a 'low pressure' one normally closed which opens at ~0.3bar, and a 'high pressure' one normally open which closes at ~0.9bar. The 0.3bar is on the blue/black wire and the 0.9bar one is on the yellow wire. The buzzer circuit uses the engine speed to decide which switch to monitor, below ~2k rpm it uses the low switch above that it uses the high switch.

It sounds to me like you've wired the Subaru switch to the blue/black wire, which keeps the dash happy until you hit 2k rpm, then it sees no pressure on the 'high' switch and puts the buzzer on.

Hi Andy
The yellow and brown wires are connected on the vw engine connector plug so where should the blue / black wire be connected to if not to the oil pressure sender? The Subaru only has one stock oil pressure switch does it not as opposed to the vw having two which is why I am getting confused

If you were to connect the Subaru switch to your 'high' oil switch input (yellow wire) it should shut the buzzer up, but you'd have no 'low pressure' warning capability. The only way to preserve the proper function of the dash warning system is to add a second switch.