Date:         Wed, 17 Aug 94 16:45:29 CDT
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@vanagon.com>
From:         Joel Walker <JWALKER@ua1vm.ua.edu>
Subject:      Re: Hard to read oil level?

On Wed, 17 Aug 94 12:01:47 CDT <stevie@tekgen.bv.tek.com> said:
>anyone else get irritated at the difficulty in reading the oil level on
>the dip stick?

yup. especially in low light levels (dusk and night).

creative solution #1: seen elsewhere.  drill small holes in the dipstick
between the Min and Add marks. say, two holes between and one hole at the
Min and one at the Add mark. of course, the holes are tiny (since the
dipstick isn't very wide), but the holes will trap the oil and you can see
which holes have oil and which don't.

severe-problem-with-creative-solution-#1:  that damn dipstick is made out of
some highly tempered steel (to withstand the temperatures of the oil) and i
couldn't drill through it!!!! barely made a dent in it!  one of these days,
i guess i'll get back on the problem and find some machine shop that has
the proper tools, but for now, i just suffer with it.

also, as i recall, the air-cooled buses would have an easier time of this, as
their dipsticks are wider (i think). us water-boxers would have to have very
small holes drilled (since the dipstick itself is rather narrow).

joel