Date: Thu, 13 Sep 2012 23:50:17 -0400
Reply-To: Dennis Haynes <d23haynes57@HOTMAIL.COM>
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From: Dennis Haynes <d23haynes57@HOTMAIL.COM>
Subject: Re: [Diesel-Vanagon] Re: Oil temp gauges,
choices? Using water temp sender + gauge?
In-Reply-To: <50529000.7080207@cox.net>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
I'll through a little more mystery in the factory oil temperature gauges. As
these cars were coming out many folks complained of high oil temperature
readings. For both cars with gauges and the digital displays the fix was to
replace the sensor! Yes let's fix the high oil temp problem buy fixing the
gauges. From experience the inline engines used o4 4 speeds or with low
fifth gears can get the oil hot! The early three speed automatics were oil
killers. Even my 88 fox with 4 speed get the oil hot enough to keep cooking
the valve cover gasket.
Dennis
-----Original Message-----
From: Vanagon Mailing List [mailto:vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com] On Behalf Of
mark drillock
Sent: Thursday, September 13, 2012 10:02 PM
To: vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM
Subject: Re: [Diesel-Vanagon] Re: Oil temp gauges, choices? Using water temp
sender + gauge?
I mostly agree. Mixing a generic VDO gauge with another brand sender made
for a specific vehicle isn't the way to go.
For fun I just now tested 3 VDO temp gauges and senders I have on hand.
I used a 12 volt battery and a pot of boiling water, at sea level.
The first was a new VDO aftermarket water temp gauge 0-250 F. It was paired
with the aftermarket VDO brand temp sender of the matching range, sold to me
at the same time as I purchased the gauge.
With the sender in rapidly boiling water the gauge read almost exactly
between the marks for 200 and 225 F. A whisker higher than the midpoint,
maybe 215 F? Pretty good I'd say.
Next I grabbed a used VW car oil temp gauge made by VDO and the VW sender I
pulled from the same car when I pulled the gauge. Both are marked 0-150 C.
The sender has the same part number marked on it as the one you linked to
from TBD.
With the sender in rapidly boiling water the gauge read almost exactly at
the 100 C mark, just a whisker below, 98/99? Pretty good again.
Especially for parts pulled from a 25 year old car, with date codes on the
parts indicating they are really that old.
The third set didn't act right. This used 150 C VW car oil temp gauge read
very low when paired with the VDO sender I had it stored with. I then
connected up the sender from the other VW VDO setup and the gauge now read
correctly, near 100 C. Then I got out the magnifying glass and looked more
closely at the odd reading sender. It said 180 C on it, so no reason to
expect it should work right with a 0-150 C gauge. The VW part number on it
had a B suffix, rather than the A of the 150 C sender.
The rest of the number was the same.
I wanted to test some more but my wife was headed home and used car parts
are not welcomed in the kitchen when she is there too.
Mark
Dennis Haynes wrote:
> In dash gauges are not high precision devices. I have found that the
> for the VDO gauges the senders for the aftermarket gauges often do not
> match what is used for OEM gauges. Get the correct sender that would
> be sold with/for the gauge you are using.
>
>