Date: Fri, 4 Jun 1999 13:56:48 -0500
Reply-To: Darrell Boehler <midwesty@MIDWEST.NET>
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From: Darrell Boehler <midwesty@MIDWEST.NET>
Subject: Re: coolant pressure gauge
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
Hi David,
jc whitney does indeed have turbo gauges. They may provide the means
needed to check for a vacuum or pressure. Your system should have very
little vacuum before it pulls coolant from the over flow tank.
The idea of a coolant pressure gauge is to indicate the coolant system
is properly pressurized. If there is coolant pressure the wasser boxer has
no leaks or at least nothing of much concern. Unless however your pressure
goes up in a hurry to 15 psi before warm up you most likely have a blown
cylinder / head gasket (the internal one).
In the past I have used an electric oil pressure gauge with senders for
oil, fuel, and coolant. The senders go to a switch where I can select the
desired system for viewing on a single gauge. The oil and fuel work well
but coolant at 0- 15 psi is not measured very accurately with a 0 -100 psi
sender. The gauge would move slightly when coolant was checked. I would
prefer using an electric sender and the single pressure gauge but could not
find a sender I liked for the low pressures of the cooling system.
Digikey.com has some low pressure senders but it appears to me a bit of
electronics would be needed to put them into use. Maybe an addition /
optional feature for the digitool.
On the vanagon the temperature gauge and the fan speed tell you when you
are running at 100 percent cooling capacity. With the temp gauge is at 3/4
and the fan is on high you have it all. Time to slow down a bit and turn off
the ac.
I run both oil pressure and oil temperature on my 78 westy and they are
redundant. If the oil pressure gauge is falling a bit the temperature will
be rising. It is however good to know exactly what the status is.
I am going to need a bigger gauge pod. I saw jc whitney now has an
exhaust pressure gauge. Maybe a 2.5 inch high panel from the instrument pod
to the above the glove box would allow some room for expansion. Maybe some
cup holders in the top.
Darrell
----- Original Message -----
From: David Beierl <synergx@IBM.NET>
To: <vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM>
Sent: Friday, June 04, 1999 9:39 AM
Subject: Re: coolant pressure gauge
> At 09:01 6/4/99 -0400, Robert Rountree wrote:
> >that is when I get a small dribble as air is sucked into one spot on my
new
> >head gaskets... cly #2 please raise your hand........I wonder if there is
a
> >gauge that would read Plus & Minus?
>
> Sure. Haven't seen one lately, but there at least used to be combined
> vacuum/pressure gauges. Try J.C. Whitney. Or just massage the stop pin
on
> a regular gauge so it will deflect downscale a bit. Or use a regular
> vacuum gauge in parallel.
>
> Has anyone figured out what useful info would be provided by a coolant
> pressure gauge? I'm a bit stumped myself. Seems like an oil temp and
> exhaust temp would be higher on the list.
>
> What I *would* really like to know is what per cent of cooling capacity is
> being used at a given moment, but I don't *think* that pressure would
> easily tell that. Or would it? How about radiator outflow temp? The
> temperature drop across the thermostat should do it nicely. When that
goes
> to zero the control action is exhausted and all that remains is to add
> airflow to the radiator. And by using two senders wired in a bridge
> circuit it ought to be possible to display differential temp directly.
I'm
> beginning to like this idea.
>
> david
> David Beierl - dbeierl@ibm.net
>
| 
