Date:         06 Jul 96 18:03:55 EDT
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@vanagon.com>
From:         "Linda J. Bartnik" <76065.3075@CompuServe.COM>
Subject:      oil temp sender success!

Hello all,

First, all replies to s_bartnik@wow.com .  

I guess most of you remember my unfortunate accident when drilling my sump plate
('78 bus) for the VDO oil temperature sender.  I drilled in the wrong spot, if
not ruining the sump plate, then definitely ruining my day.  Luckily I was able
to find another one in a junkyard for $3 and threw it on the car for my road
trip the next day.  Whew!

Well, today was the day that the sender got installed.  We borrowed a drill with
a 1/2" drive from a local mechanic (it does help to have the proper tools) and a
9/16" drill bit (hard to find.  Sears had one).  We took the undrilled sump
plate off the car and then used the drilled sump plate to practice on.  We
drilled the proper hole in the old plate and loosely put the sender in there and
put it on the car to make sure it would fit.  It did.  Yay!  So we drilled the
new sump plate in the same place and sure enough, it fit great!  Woohoo!  By
"we" I mean me and my dad doing this work.  

Put the oil back in and fired her up, took her around town to check it out.
Gauge and sender seem to be working.  It's in the upper 80s today and the oil
temp maxed out at around 185-190 (hard to tell exactly with this gauge), usually
only reaching 190 at stoplights.  Got back home and shut the engine off, looked
under the car and found that it was leaking oil A LOT.  Not good.  It was not
just a couple drops.  The sender and wire were covered with oil and it was going
dripdripdripdrip leaving a rather large puddle under the car.  Pulled it back in
to the garage to rethink.  Dropped the sump plate again, and removed the sender.
We found some burrs on the plate near where we drilled, so sanded them down.
Now, this sender comes only with a copper washer for sealing, and the washer
goes on the outside of the plate.  Inside is only a nut holding it in.  We went
to the FLAPS and bought a couple rubber o-rings to better seal the sender and
put everything back together.  It don't leak now!  I just hope those o-rings
hold up.  That's basically the only thing keeping my oil in the car.  Oil temps
seem to do ok, and my little brother has just asked me to take him to the
fireworks store so it looks like I'm going to go do some interstate testing :) .

Thanks to everyone for their help.  

Sean