Combined water/oil gauge

[SaskStag]

Tanya
Are you driving the car yet or waiting for Winter??
Nick

It seems like it.
We'll be in the UK for October, so will miss out getting teh Stag roadworthy even then. If it's not running in September, it may not see the roadways until next year

[wilf]

Excellent. Lots more upgrades to do then!

[SaskStag]

I hate to say this....but I now have a Monarch Stag's zf 4 spd autobox sitting in the garage and two halfshafts (equals one whole )..........
but we're not fitting it; when the Stag is on the road - it's going to the transmission guys for fitting

So, I'd better get back to work and earn some more dosh.........
T

[SaskStag]

Back from seeing some real Stags that actually go, at the British car show in Toronto. A great incentive!

Now, I have the water sender in place with the adapter that came with the kit, pretty straightforward. The plastic hose that came with the kit is too short for oil sender to gauge in a LHD (at least for where I'm going through the bulkhead). So I bought some copper pipe and I'll have a go at shaping it tomorrow...something about filling the pipe with sand or salt before bending it.....??? Now I'm learning about plumbing......
Tanya

[wilf]

Tanya, personally I would not use copper pipe. Quite apart from any trouble bending it without kinking it, if it can vibrate anywhere it will work harden and fracture. By far the better route is some dash3 aeroquip braided line, you can get all the fittings needed from the likes of think auto.

[Stagsongas]

Tanya,

I simply could not find plastic hose of the right size to replace the white nylon stuff. Everywhere I went they proudly produced the same white nylon!

The copper I got is thick-walled and can be shaped in the fingers with no worries about collapse. Any metal will work-harden if it is constantly moving or bending but with copper being soft, it takes much longer. A coil of 3 or 4 turns where movement is expected (say close to the bulkhead) will retard that process for longer than the life of the car. Wind it around something like a narrow jar or can to form the coil (this is a good tip for bends too).

For perfection, Wilf is right, braided hydraulic hose with the correct end fittings.

Good Luck

Steve

[SaskStag]

I'll have a go at making copper coils, but I'll order some braided stuff anyway - I saw that on past threads. I can get 6 feet from Jegs in the USA for this job.
The other thought is not to prime with oil, it doesn't sound necessary, to my non-mechanical mind. I work with catheter/tubing systems to measure arterial blood pressure (not cuffs like your doc uses). Arterial pressure changes with every heart beat so you can't have dampening from air in the line and/or using compliant or soft tubing. With dampening in the line, the pressure will oscillate around the mean pressure and the system doesn't have enough reaction time to show peaks and troughs (systolic/diastolic pressure). There shouldn't be any rapidly changing peaks and troughs in the oil system, so the average pressure is ok...does that make sense in the mechanical world too?
Tanya

[wilf]

LOL. You will get as any answers saying "fill it oil" as you will saying "leave it full of air". Ergo: it doesn't matter imho.

[SaskStag]

Good, air is less messy
Gone for the braided hose, but had to ship it from the UK to make sure the threads are ok. I tried the copper pipe fittings and they seemed to work, but very iffy so wrong thread.
T

[Stagsongas]

I'll have a go at making copper coils, but I'll order some braided stuff anyway - I saw that on past threads. I can get 6 feet from Jegs in the USA for this job.
The other thought is not to prime with oil, it doesn't sound necessary, to my non-mechanical mind. I work with catheter/tubing systems to measure arterial blood pressure (not cuffs like your doc uses). Arterial pressure changes with every heart beat so you can't have dampening from air in the line and/or using compliant or soft tubing. With dampening in the line, the pressure will oscillate around the mean pressure and the system doesn't have enough reaction time to show peaks and troughs (systolic/diastolic pressure). There shouldn't be any rapidly changing peaks and troughs in the oil system, so the average pressure is ok...does that make sense in the mechanical world too?
Tanya

Tanya,

Hydraulics is uniform, whether we're talking about fluid in our veins or in our oil-lines, so all you say is good for both.

You don't have to fill the pipe up. If you choose to have only oil in the pipe, it's easy to bleed all the air out with the engine running, just use a catch can and then lock the nipple off.

As you say, there are benefits and things that could be seen as drawbacks, but the singlemost important for me, for soch a small thing, is that with the oil pipe bled, my gauge shows oil pressure on cranking, before the engine even fires.

I find that comforting

Regards

Steve

[Mike Stevens]

Tanya,

With no flow, the pressure at each end of the pipe, even with air in it, will be the same. As you know, the air will damp the reading so changes will be sluggish which as you say doesn't really matter.

I've fitted a number of oil gauges to different cars and never yet actively bled the pipe. They've all worked OK and somehow always seem to end up with oil at the gauge end!

Have a good trip on the narrowboat. Most of them these days have central heating so they do keep warm. However, some poor s*d has to sit out the back and steer! Mind you, what we call 'cold' is probably quite warm to you!

Cheers,
Mike.