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!!!
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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