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Date:         Thu, 11 Sep 1997 20:11:27 EDT
Reply-To:     Sean Bartnik <sbart7kb@WWW.MWC.EDU>
Sender:       Vanagon mailing list <Vanagon@Gerry.SDSC.EDU>
From:         Sean Bartnik <sbart7kb@WWW.MWC.EDU>
Subject:      Gauges finally installed!!!
Comments: cc: type2@type2.com

Hey all!

I'm sitting here drinking a Dominion Stout to congratulate myself for finally getting all the gauges working (BTW, to Steve Dolan, thanks for turning me on to this stuff! :-)

Anyway, here's the rest of the story:

Got the gauges installed in August before I left TN for school here in Fredericksburg, VA. It was a minor hack, but it worked. I used a VDO gauge pod that I got from Jim Thompson, which worked well with some modification.

The only thing I was waiting on was getting the senders installed. I had the oil temp sending unit and the oil pressure sending unit from Ron at the Bus Depot., but I was waiting on a drilled sump plate from another listmember and the oil pressure extension hose for the Type 4 engine from Jim Thompson, which was backordered.

Well, I got the sump plate a week or so ago, and installed the sensor into it, and then installed the plate and wiring in the van last weekend, at Steve Dolan's place. So the oil temp gauge has been reporting good news since then, in fact I wonder if the temps are not too cool.

I got the oil pressure hose today from Jim. So I've spent the last couple hours installing that.

I first removed the old sensor and then screwed in the hose, then mounted the pressure sensor in a good spot (hard to describe, I will have to take a pic and post it), and tightened all that up. Then I hooked up the wire to the warning light to the proper terminal on the sensor, and fired it up. Found a major oil leak where the hose screws into the case, by the distributor. Shut it down, took it all apart and spread some of my Permatex RTV blue gasket maker silicone on the threads off all the connections, then let it dry and tried it again. While letting it dry, I ran the wiring from the gauge to the sensor. When I fired it up the next time, no leaks! And the nice thing is that the sensor grounds through the attachment/hold-down strap that comes with the extension hose, so I could use the blue stuff to stop oil leaks.

So I drove it around a bit, found that when it warms up, it gets down to about 15 psi at idle, but when driving down the road or at almost anything above idle it stays at 40 psi or above.

Anyway, I've noticed something quite annoying: Sometimes, on humid or rainy days or nights, when I turn the headlights on and, consequently, the internal gauge lighting, the gauges fog up from the INSIDE, and eventually the warmth of the internal light defogs them, but it takes a good long time. Why do they do this? Humid day at the factory when they sealed the gauges or what??? It's really really annoying. I don't recall the oil temp gauge I had in the '78 doing this.

Well, anyway, I will try to get some pics soon and post them. Thanks to everybody who helped out, and thanks to Ron at the Bus Depot and Jim Thompson at Old Volks Home, who supplied me with all the goodies :-)

Sean

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