I’d like thoughts & advice on installing oil pressure & temperature gauges. I’m going with electrical sending units. Here are possible locations for each sending unit:
OIL PRESSURE
Install a brass 1/8" NPT tee where the OEM pressure switch goes, and install the sender in the tee
OIL TEMPERATURE
Install another brass tee or a three way fitting at the OEM oil pressure switch location to house both pressure & temperature senders
Install a special oil-pan temperature sender in the oil drain screw location
Drill and tap pan for the oil temperature sender
Install in the oil temperature switch location?
COMBINATION PRESSURE & TEMPERATURE USING OIL FILTER SANDWICH PLATE
Blox makes an oil filter sandwich plate that mounts between the block and filter and is threaded to accept both pressure and temperature senders
Does anyone know whether the OEM oil temperature switch (which controls the fans) would make a viable location for an oil temperature sender? If it leads into an actual oil drain or supply passage, this could be ideal.
Measuring oil temperature at the OEM pressure switch location seems least ideal; which temperature location would seem to provide the most accurate reading?
In my opinion the best place for your oil-pressure source is indeed the stock pressure-sensor location.
But rather than using a t-fitting, I’d get rid of the factory sensor all together. I mean, that sensor only controls your (dummy) dash oil light… Once you have an actual pressure gauge, the oil light in the cluster is a bit obsolete.
People have been steering away from the T-fitting in that location also becaus of the chance of it being hit and/or broken. Brass fittings are pretty brittle… and having one break off in the motor would be no good. Granted, if you don’t pull your motor often, likely you’ll be fine… But I prefer to delete it all together.
[QUOTE=unified112;2303303]In my opinion the best place for your oil-pressure source is indeed the stock pressure-sensor location.
But rather than using a t-fitting, I’d get rid of the factory sensor all together. I mean, that sensor only controls your (dummy) dash oil light… Once you have an actual pressure gauge, the oil light in the cluster is a bit obsolete.
People have been steering away from the T-fitting in that location also becaus of the chance of it being hit and/or broken. Brass fittings are pretty brittle… and having one break off in the motor would be no good. Granted, if you don’t pull your motor often, likely you’ll be fine… But I prefer to delete it all together.
Sorry I have any input on the temp sensor…[/QUOTE]
Does the idiot light stay on if you simply delete the OEM oil pressure switch?
I removed mine when installing my pressure gauge. I just used a 4ft 1/4" steel braided hose and the correct fittings to make a solid connection to the block.
4ft was a bit long, but I didn’t want my mounting options restricted by my oil feed length.
Personally I like the sandwich plate. It’s not too expensive and gives you tons of options down the road. I was running my oil pressure gauge (mechanical) off of the sandwich plate. Depending on the sending unit the sandwich plate might be a tight squeeze making the oem location a more convenient one. Although personally I prefer to keep the OEM dummy light, but like Sean said its really not that necessary, I just think it never hurts to have that redundancy. If it’s easy to keep, I’d keep it, but if it’s inconvenient to keep both then just ditch it.
I too am not sure about temp. I only have a water temp gauge in my car, not oil temp.
I bought a block from a guy who did this. I made the mistake of removing it and relocating it, and then I found out it was tapped with a 1/8 NPT fitting into a 1/8 BSP (yes, the original threads for the oil sensor is BSP not NPT). It will seal, but don’t ever remove it without planning on having the block welded like had to be done on mine, I could not get the original sensor to reseal. Finally tightened it too much and broke the ear off. Just get the donut and leave the BSP oil pressure sensor threads alone.
^I’m worried about that same thing. The block I just bought had a brass fitting in that location which snapped when I tried to remove it. So now I have to extract it, hopefully he used the right threaded adapter (fingers crossed).
