Date: Tue, 19 May 2020 08:50:41 -0700
Reply-To: Alistair Bell <albell@SHAW.CA>
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From: Alistair Bell <albell@SHAW.CA>
Subject: Re: oil pressure gauge and temp gauge
In-Reply-To: <CAFdLW6=33yWteguwXCrfbmPxqetSLuP1aO=MkkoSkWmtgH5uVg@mail.gmail.com>
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I hear ya dan, but...
It’s 2020. The vans are a lot older now. Maybe you rebuild or pop in a new engine every ten years , even so I’d have gauges installed to monitor that :-)
I really appreciate having oil pressure and temp gauges in my van. I can decide to stop and rest the van a while when on summer trips on logging roads. If I know I have a steepish and slow big hill ahead I find a place to stop for a while, have a bite to eat, look around, let the van cook a wee bit, before stressing it on the climb.
I suppose I’m fully in the gauge camp. I’ll stake my claim that oil pressure and temp gauges are essential.
As Luther sort of said: here i stand, I can go no further.
Well, maybe that’s not the right quote to bring up with old vans :-)
Alistair
> On May 19, 2020, at 8:22 AM, Dan N <dn92610@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> well... my thinking (and I may be wrong)... on vanagon the more information
> the driver has (oil temp/oil pressure/coolant temp/voltage etc..) the
> worrier he is...
>
> when I had a 1978 air cooled barn door, and later a 1985 1.9 wbx... I know
> nothing except oil/filter/spark plugs change... and I was not worried...
> and now I am worrier than before because of those infos...
>
>> On Tue, May 19, 2020 at 5:30 AM kenneth wilford (Van-Again) <
>> kenwilfy@comcast.net> wrote:
>>
>> Here is my take on the oil pressure gauge situation. You are driving down
>> the road. You have an oil pressure gauge installed. Every so often you
>> take a look at your gauge to see what your oil pressure is doing. It has a
>> "normal" range when at cold idle, hot idle, 65 mph down the interstate.
>> You figure out what this "normal" range is, and then file that away in your
>> brain. One day you look down and something is not right. Oil pressure is
>> much lower than it normally is and you react by pulling over and checking
>> things out. Or over time you start seeing a trend where the oil
>> pressure isn't the same at start up, or takes longer to register at start
>> up, etc. In effect you establish a "normal" and then when things are no
>> longer the way they should be, you can intervene in some way (pull over,
>> add oil, replace oil, replace filter, etc).
>> Accuracy, really has very little to do with it if we are being honest.
>> That is why in Ford pickup trucks and Jeeps, they have an oil pressure
>> gauge that is essentially a dummy light. If your oil pressure is above a
>> certain value, the oil pressure "gauge" goes to the middle and everything
>> looks fine. When oil pressure goes below a certain range, the oil pressure
>> gauge goes to zero to scare you so you will pull over and investigate. 99%
>> of the people out there this is what they are actually looking for even if
>> they don't realize it. The folks that call me wanting to buy our oil
>> pressure gauge kit, want to be able to disable that pesky oil buzzer system
>> in the cluster. Or if they don't, that when that buzzer is going off, they
>> can look at the gauge to see if it is a false alarm or not instead of
>> having to pull over and unload everything over the engine while on a trip.
>> They aren't really looking for accuracy. They aren't engine builders, or
>> engine testers, they are drivers and sometimes simple is better.
>>
>> Our kit is simple. You remove your oil filter, you install the adapter,
>> reinstall the oil filter, you run a premade length of wire to the front
>> and plug it into the gauge that you mount on the dash. You still have to
>> wire the lighting and the power and ground but that is it. Very simple and
>> easy. Is there a "better" place in the system to look for oil pressure for
>> accuracy? Possibly. But is that what you really need? Most likely not.
>> You just want to be able to drive, enjoy your van, and not panic if the oil
>> light starts to flicker for no reason or the buzzer starts to go off due to
>> a flaky dash cluster, or bad wire. Or you want to see trends over time.
>> Either way you can do that just as well with my kit.
>>
>> The kit is reasonably priced for what it is, and how it takes most of the
>> work and complexity out of doing this, so more people can do it and feel
>> confident in getting it done. You don't have to be an amazing mechanic to
>> install this, just competent.
>>
>> So if you need accuracy for the sake of accuracy then you might, maybe get
>> more accuracy out of a VDO sensor and gauge but you are going to pay a lot
>> more for it. And then you are still going to have to rig up an oil line,
>> and stuff and things that will look like a rig up at the end of the day not
>> matter how good of a job you do.
>>
>> Just my two cents.
>>
>> Ken
>>
>>